A Friendship Turns To A Bond
by Myra109
Summary: Miguel and Hiro are best friends, and when Miguel visits San Fransokyo to watch Hiro present his microbots, he gets trapped inside of the burning building. Hiro believes Miguel is dead and sets out to find the person who started the fire, but what he doesn't know is that Miguel is still alive. He's in a coma, stuck in the Land Of The Dead until he either dies or wakes up. AU
1. We've Come A Long Way (Where We Began)

_The title **A Friendship Turns To A Bond **is a line from **See You Again** by Charlie Puth._

_WARNINGS: CANON TYPICAL STUFF: CANON TYPICAL VIOLENCE, GRIEF, DEPRESSION, ETC._

**Disclaimer: I do not own Big Hero 6 or Coco or anything you recognize.**

* * *

**Past:**

**August 14th, Honey Lemon's apartment**

"Tadashi, my social skills are fine! I don't need a new friend!" Hiro yelled at his brother as he shoved his brother's hands away from his black locks, which Tadashi had been trying to flatten, although his attempts to tame Hiro's wild hair proved to be futile.

"Hiro, you haven't even met him yet! Give him a chance," Tadashi begged, widening his eyes in a puppy dog look.

"Don't give me those puppy dog eyes. I _invented_ that look!" Hiro told his brother, raising his eyebrows as he pointed an accusatory finger at the twenty-one year old man. "And how can you expect me to give a stranger a chance when you didn't tell me you were forcing me to make a new friend until the ride over?"

"Would you have come if I told you?"

In a cartoon, crickets would've been playing in the absolute silence that answered Tadashi's question.

"Exactly. Hiro, he's only one year younger than you. He's a nice kid, and he needs a friend just as much as you do," Tadashi pleaded for his brother to understand.

"I have plenty of friends," Hiro responded, hotly.

"Like who?"

"Like the guys I play poker with!"

"Hiro, those guys are forty! You need friends your own age, and how many times have I told you to stop playing poker with middle aged men? I never thought I would have to tell that!"

"Tadashi, not all adults are bad!" Hiro defended.

"I know that, Hiro," Tadashi said, rubbing a hand over his brow in frustration. "But a fourteen year old's best friend should not be three times his age. You need someone your age to talk to about school and video games and girls. You can't do that with a forty year old! It's settled. You need a friend, and he needs a friend. You are going to give him a chance, and you are going to be _pleasant."_

"Tadashi, _pleasant_ is not in my vocabulary," Hiro shot back.

"Trust me, I know," Tadashi replied, rolling his eyes. "But you can at least make an effort. All right? Honey Lemon told me he's a nice kid."

"Wait. You haven't even met him?"

"Well, no, but Honey Lemon's told me good things, and I trust her judgement," Tadashi told him.

"He's her family. Of course she's going to say nice things about him," Hiro spat.

"Well, you're my family, and you don't say nice things about me," Tadashi pointed out.

"Well, you're my brother. We're not supposed to compliment each other unless it's to our benefit, like when we want something," Hiro countered.

"True," Tadashi agreed. "But that doesn't mean you have the right to judge him before you've even met him. Please, Hiro? Just try?"

Hiro huffed. "All right. I'll try… but only if you give me ten bucks."

Tadashi sighed and dug through his pockets to produce a crumpled ten dollar bill.

Hiro plucked the money from his fingers and chirped, "Thank you. So what's this kid's name?"

"Miguel," Tadashi answered. "He's Honey Lemon's cousin. Their entire family are shoemakers, and they hate music for some reason, so… talk about shoes and don't mention music."

"Oh, joy," Hiro muttered, sarcastically. "How exciting that conversation is going to be."

Tadashi walked Hiro into Honey Lemon's apartment, and the first thing that Hiro saw was a cloud of pink smoke.

Hiro coughed. "Is this normal?" he asked.

"Oh, yeah," Tadashi stated. "Honey Lemon's an… eccentric chemist. She once froze fire."

"Doesn't that go against the laws of physics?" Hiro questioned.

Tadashi shrugged. "Try telling that to her."

The smoke cloud dissipated to reveal a tall girl with long reddish-blonde hair (her hair is red in the TV series and dark blonde in the movie, so I met it half way) wearing a lab coat, which was now painted pink from the powder solution. She took off her glasses to clean them on the only part of her shirt that wasn't pink before placing them back on her nose.

"You must be Hiro!" she exclaimed. "I've heard so much about you, and this…" she looked around in search of Miguel, only to find him trying to sneak off on the fire escape.

Honey Lemon raced over and pulled him back through the window by the hood of his sweatshirt before returning to the doorway with him.

The Latino boy wore a red hoodie and a white tank top. His hair was dark brown, the same color as his eyes, and his reluctant smile displayed a dimple on one of his cheeks.

"This is Miguel," she said. "Miguel, Hiro."

"_Hola_," Miguel greeted, waving briefly and awkwardly. *Hello*

"Well, we'll leave you two to get acquainted while we go to school to work on our semester projects," Honey Lemon said, skirting around them as though they were two dangerous chemicals that when mixed would set off an explosive chemical reaction. "Have fun!" She chirped before darting out the door, dragging Tadashi with her.

For several long moments after the door closed behind the two young adults, Hiro and Miguel stood in silence, neither meeting the other's eyes.

"Glad to see you don't want to be here any more than I do," Hiro finally said. "Want to watch TV so we don't have to talk?"

Miguel sighed in relief. "I'm glad you suggested it," he said as they sat down on the couch, as far apart from each other as possible.

Hiro picked up the remote and turned on bot fights, watching as the bots clashed together in a flurry of sparks.

"Woah, way too violet," Miguel stated, snatching the remote and turning the channel to some weird musical where a bunch of teenagers were dancing on top of cafeteria tables.

"A musical? Seriously?" Hiro deadpanned, taking the remote back to return the TV to the bot fighting channel. "Doesn't your family hate music?"

"Isn't bot fighting illegal?" Miguel fired back, ripping the remote away from Hiro to change the channel back to the musical.

"_Betting_ on bot fighting is illegal," Hiro clarified as he took the remote back, only to have Miguel yank it away before he could even press a button. Hiro grabbed the remote, and Miguel grabbed it back.

The rest of the visit continued in much the same way.

* * *

**Present:**

**January 7th, San Fransokyo Institute of Technology**

"So are you excited?" Miguel asked as he and Hiro strolled towards the building where the SFIT showcase was being held.

"Of course," Hiro admitted.

"Nervous?" Miguel added.

Hiro chuckled as he watched Tadashi and the others unload the garbage cans full of microbots from the truck. The night was getting hot, so Miguel threw his hoodie over the garbage can he would be pushing, and Hiro did the same with his jacket.

"Nervous? Why would I be nervous?" Hiro asked with an expression of cool collectiveness on his face. "I'm an ex-bot fighter. I went up against guys five times my size. This is nothing."

"Hiro, I can read you like an open book," Miguel pointed out. "When you went up against those bot fighters, you were in your territory, your backyard, your comfort zone. Here… well, it's outside what you're used to. In bot fighting, you may have been smaller, but you were smarter. Here, these people are geniuses like you, and normally, these would be your people, but today, they're the competition, and-"

"Miguel?"

"Yes?"

"You're not helping."

"If you would let me finish," Miguel laughed. "And you're scared. I can see that, Hiro; you don't have to try to hide it from me. But everyone gets nervous, Hiro. You think I wasn't scared out of my mind when I performed in front of hundreds of people at my first performance? Cause I was, but I didn't let that fear stop me. I got up there and crushed it, and you're going to crush it today. If you want something bad enough, nothing will stop you, and judging by how much work you put into your tech, you want this a lot. The work is already done. All you have to do is present it, and I'm positive that you're going to knock their socks off," Miguel finished with a light shove on Hiro's shoulder.

"Thanks, Miguel," Hiro told his friend.

"You guys coming? We're gonna be late!" Wasabi told them, and both of the boys grabbed a garage can, and the five young adults and the two teenagers headed towards the building, the wheels on the garbage cans creaking all the way.

…

"And next, Hiro Hamada!" a woman announced on the stage.

Hiro took a deep breath, and Miguel placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Hiro, if you get scared, just… look at me," Miguel suggested. "Forget about everything else. Pretend it's just you and me, practicing in your garage."

Hiro nodded, and he slowly stepped onto the stage, grabbing the microbot in his pocket and slipping the neurotransmitter onto his head, the band wrapping around his skull and lighting up as it connected to his brain.

"Hello, uh," Hiro stammered, wincing as the microphone screeched. "My name is Hiro Hamada, and I've been working on something that I think is pretty cool. This," he held up the small machine in his hand, "is a microbot."

The sponsors blinked, unimpressed, and one even tried to discreetly slip away to look at the projects of other people.

Hiro swallowed before his eyes landed on Miguel, who lightly tapped his chest to signal Hiro to act like it was just them, like no one else existed.

If Miguel could use that technique to get through his concerts, maybe it would work for Hiro, too.

The rest of the world seemed to fade away until the showcase was replaced with the memory of rehearsing for this moment in his garage while Miguel lounged in the desk chair, watching in interest and amazement.

"It doesn't look like much," Hiro admitted, "But when it joins up with the rest of its pals…"

The garbage cans tipped over, and thousands of microbots slithered across the floor in a tidal wave of tech to form a structure on the stage.

"Things get a little more interesting," Hiro said as the microbot in his hand joined the others with a single thought.

Several other people, including other contestants, gathered around to watch Hiro's presentation, interested in the impressive technology.

"Microbots can revolutionize the way we do things. Like construction," Hiro gave as an example, and he walked into the center of the structure of microbots as the tech began to piece together pieces of metal to form a spire. He climbed the metal structure the microbots had built and stood at the top as the microbots moved aside to display the spire that had been built. "What would take years and dozens, if not hundreds, of workers, can now be accomplished by one person."

Hiro stepped off of the structure while the audience gasped, thinking he would fall.

"Or transportation," Hiro said as the microbots shifted to catch him on what looked like a wave, carrying him across the large room. "Microbots can move anything-" the microbots lifted someone's project, which was shaped like some kind of large hamster ball, into the air before placing it back down on its platform. "-anywhere with ease."

The microbots flipped Hiro upside down, and on the way back to the stage, he high fived Tadashi and smiled at Miguel, who cheered Hiro on with the rest of the crowd.

Hiro returned to the stage and announced into the microphone, "The microbots are controlled by this neurotransmitter, which connects to your thoughts. If you can think it, microbots can do it," he summed up, using his mind to form a hand with the microbots, and the hand waved. The hand became one large microbot. "Microbots!" Hiro finished, bowing as the crowd clapped, and the microbot beside him bent at the middle, as well, concluding his presentation.

Hiro jumped off of the stage, holding the neurotransmitter in one of his hands, and he did a handshake with Tadashi, cheering in excitement as he embraced Miguel.

"Thanks, guys," he told his brother and his friend… No. Scratch that. He told both of his brothers. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"Think of it as me paying you back for all the times you came to my concerts," Miguel told Hiro.

"Me, on the other hand," Tadashi laughed, crossing his arms and pretending to be smug, "You still owe."

The three of them chuckled.

"But seriously, just the fact that you're using your big brain for something useful is more than enough. Totally worth all the time I had to save your butt from bot fighters," Tadashi stated.

"Your microbots could be the next greatest technological advancement," Professor Callaghan said as he walked over.

"He's right," a different voice drawled, and a blonde man with an aura of arrogance strolled towards them, confidently.

"Allister Krei," Hiro exclaimed in awe, recognizing the richest man in San Fransokyo. This man was the owner of a billion dollar company that made and mass produced over fifty percent of the technology used in the country.

"May I?" Krei asked, holding out his hand, and Hiro tossed the microbot in his pocket into the man's palm.

"Extraordinary," Krei admitted, studying the small piece of technology. "I am offering you lots of money for your microbots. We will sell them across the country. Microbots could be everywhere within the next five years."

"It is your choice, Hiro," Callaghan assured him, "You can come to SFIT and continue to develop them, or you can sell them, but I must warn you. Allister Krei has taken short cuts, cut corners, to get to where he is. I wouldn't trust him with your microbots… or anything else," Callaghan added with a glare that had the intensity of the sun, definitely hinting at a lot of animosity between the two men.

Hiro bit his lip, debating the choices, but he thought of Miguel and how Miguel worked so hard, constantly developing his music and getting better and never taking a short cut. He was climbing his way to where he wanted to be, but he didn't leave the ones he loved behind, and he certainly didn't push people out of the way to get to the top. Miguel was Hiro's role model just as much as Hiro was the one Miguel looked up to, and Miguel never took the easy way out… so Hiro wouldn't either.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Krei, but they're not for sale," Hiro decided.

Krei looked mildly surprised, but he nodded.

"All right then," he agreed before beginning to walk away.

"Mr. Krei," Tadashi called after him, pointing at the man's hand. "That's my brother's."

Krei smiled, brushing the obviously purposeful move off as a mere mistake, and he tossed the microbot to Hiro, who stuck it back in his pants pocket. The man disappeared into the crowd with his assistant, and Callaghan turned to Hiro.

"Hiro," Professor Callaghan said. "You deserved this. I'll be seeing you in class," he told the teenager as he handed him the envelope.

Hiro punched the air in excitement as the small group walked out of the building, the envelope in his hand.

"This calls for a celebration!" Aunt Cass called. "Let's go to the café for my famous hot wings!"

"Yes, free food! Nothing is better than free food… unless it's moldy," Fred added.

Miguel suddenly shivered, and he realized he had forgotten his hoodie inside.

"I forgot my hoodie," he told Tadashi and Hiro as he started heading back towards the building.

Realizing he had forgotten his own jacket, Hiro called after him, "Could you grab mine, too? Thanks!"

The two brothers walked over to the bridge overlooking a small creek, and Hiro leaned against the railing.

"Let me guess… I should be proud of myself for finally putting my intelligence to good use," Hiro said in a mock Tadashi impression.

"No, I was just going to tell you that your fly was down for the whole show," Tadashi replied.

"Ha ha, very funny," Hiro said before glancing down and discovering that Tadashi was telling the truth. His face turned red with a deep blush as he yanked the zipper up, elbowing Tadashi in irritation for not telling him earlier. "But seriously, thanks. I wouldn't be here… going to Nerd School… without you, so… thanks for not giving up on me," Hiro stammered, awkwardly, obviously not used to talking about his feelings.

Tadashi shrugged before he suddenly froze, ears perking as he heard the sounds of alarms in the distance. Turning around, he saw smoke rising above the tree line, coming from… the showcase building.

The Hamada brothers sprinted for the building, and they arrived in time to see several fleeing people, coughing and screaming in panic. Tadashi hurried to help a woman, who was bent over hacking.

"Are you all right?" Tadashi asked.

The woman nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine, but Professor Callaghan and a kid are still in there."

The woman ran off to get further away from the smoke, and Hiro stared at the building, his heart jumping and pounding in fear. At some point during their friendship, Hiro and Miguel's bond had become so strong, they formed a sixth sense when it came to each other. They always knew when the other was in danger.

And that sixth sense was going off like crazy.

"Miguel!" Hiro shouted, and he ran towards the building, ignoring Tadashi's attempts to pull him back.

Tadashi grabbed Hiro's shirt, and Hiro struggled against his sibling, fighting with all the power he had in his scrawny fourteen year old body.

"Miguel is in there, Tadashi!" Hiro cried.

"I know, but I can't let you go in there!" Tadashi yelled over the roaring of the flames. "You could get hurt!"

"I don't care! Miguel is in there!" Hiro begged, struggling harder.

The sound of coughing made Hiro jerk his head up, and he could see through the glass doors a figure making its way towards the door.

"Miguel!" Hiro called as he broke from Tadashi's hold, dashing for the doors.

Hiro looked through the glass at his best friend, his brother in bond but not blood, and he could see frightened tears streaking down Miguel's soot coated face as he rushed towards the door.

"MIGUEL!" Hiro wailed right before the building exploded.

Windows shattering, flames crackling, heart pounding, blood roaring, screaming, so much screaming, so much noise and so much pain. He could feel a sharp arc of pain rushing through his left leg, shooting through the rest of his body like the fire that burned his skin was inside his veins as he was thrown back, his back colliding hard with the pavement. His head smacked against the concrete with a loud crack, and oddly, the head injury was what made everything stop hurting.

The world began to go black at the edges, the darkness slowly consuming his vision as the pain faded away to a dull ache. He felt really tired all of a sudden, and he felt like he should be scared, but he was too sleepy to be afraid at the moment.

"Hiro?"

He knew that voice, but he couldn't remember their name. He knew he should know the name of the owner of the voice, but his brain was moving too slowly to make any connections.

Maybe… maybe when he woke up, he could think more clearly... He felt like he should stay awake, but he was so tired, and… a little sleep never hurt anyone, right?

Hiro began to slip into a state of unconsciousness, giving into the sea of blissful darkness without a fight.

"Hiro! HIRO!"

* * *

_The Past/Present format is new for me, so I hope it works out. Please leave a review, and thank you all for reading! This is the first Big Hero 6 story that I've posted, not to mention the first Coco story that I've posted, so I'm kind of excited._

_Also, Miguel's jacket will be explained later._


	2. When Family's All That We Got

_That moment when you start to edit chapter 3 and then realize you forgot to post chapter 2... *face palm*_

_WARNINGS: CANON TYPICAL STUFF; DESCRIPTION OF INJURY_

_Disclaimer: I do not own the movies Big Hero 6 or Coco or anything that you recognize._

* * *

**Past:**

**August 27th, Honey Lemon's apartment**

"Valentina, do I have to see him again? He's arrogant and obnoxious."

"Someone's been paying attention to the word of the day," Honey Lemon laughed as she grabbed her book bag from the kitchen table. "And how many times have I told you, Miguel? Just call me Val or Honey Lemon."

"Sorry, Va- Honey Lemon. You're my cousin, and I love you, but even you have to admit Hiro is a bit of a brat," Miguel begged for his older cousin to understand.

"Tadashi warned me about that. Hiro is actually a really nice kid, but he acts like a brat around strangers. Keep in mind, Hiro's a super genius in a very judgmental world, just like you being a musician in a music hating family," Honey Lemon stated, placing a hand on Miguel's shoulder. "Miguel, give Hiro a chance. Tadashi's worried about his brother, and I'm worried about you."

"Why? There's nothing wrong with me," Miguel disagreed.

"I didn't say there was, Miguel," Honey Lemon uttered. "But you have to admit you need a friend."

"I have tons of friends!"

"Name one."

Miguel blinked before stammering, "I-I have Dante."

"Dante is a dog," Honey Lemon pointed out, "And yes, a dog is man's best friend, but that doesn't mean he should be your _only_ friend. You need someone to vent your frustrations to and someone to support you and talk to about… whatever teenage boys talk to each other about. Miguel, I know you and Hiro have had a bit of a rough start, but so did Tadashi and I and look at us! I'm not asking you to like him, Miguel. I'm only asking for you to give this a little time."

Miguel sighed. "Fine. But I'm not going to be happy about it."

Honey Lemon nodded. "Thank you, Miguel. Hiro may seem like a brat at first, but once you get to know him, I'm sure he won't be so bad," she assured him as she walked into the other room to look for her chemistry textbook.

"If only I could be as sure as you are," Miguel muttered.

* * *

**Past:**

**August 27th, Lucky Cat Café**

"Hiro, why won't you give this a chance?" Tadashi pleaded as he poured a smoothie out of the blender and into a cup. "Hand this to Aunt Cass. Tell her it's for the guy at Table 7."

Hiro took the cup and passed it to his aunt with the brief statement of, "Table 7," before rounding on his brother once again.

"He's annoying, Tadashi," Hiro answered.

"You've only met him once. You _barely_ know him," Tadashi pointed out, exasperated.

"I know enough about him to know he's annoying!" Hiro countered.

"Hiro, I thought Honey Lemon was a bit too all-over-the-place when I first met her, too, and look at how good of friends we are now," Tadashi told his brother as he reached into the cabinet for some cream. "Hiro, could you please fix the coffee machine? It's almost rush hour, and I can't get it to turn on."

Hiro sighed as he grabbed the tool bag from the stool beside him and set to twisting a few bolts.

"Well, Miguel is not Honey Lemon, and I'm not you. Maybe we're just too different," Hiro said as he took the cover off of a small electrical panel on the side of the coffee machine.

"Or maybe you're too similar," Tadashi suggested.

"What are you talking about? We're nothing alike," Hiro responded as he grabbed a screw driver from his tool bag to screw the cover back on.

"On the surface, maybe, but you two could definitely relate to each other if you actually gave this the chance I'm asking you for. You are a super genius in a world full of average people who are jealous at the best or judge you simply because you're different at the worst," Tadashi stated as he grabbed another cup from the cupboard. "Miguel's a lot like you. He loves music, but his family hates it, and at some point, they're going to find out he wants to be a musician, and he's scared that he's going to have to choose between his family and the passion that makes him who he is. That isn't easy for a twelve year old to go through."

Hiro blinked. "I-I didn't know that."

"Of course you didn't. You were too busy being annoyed by him to ask," Tadashi said. "So what's wrong with the coffee machine?"

Hiro chuckled and held up a cord. "It wasn't plugged in, genius."

Tadashi blushed and sputtered, "Uh, I knew that."

"Sure, you did, Nerd," Hiro laughed.

"Be quiet, Knucklehead, and start helping me make the coffee," Tadashi joked, shoving his brother playfully.

Hiro grabbed a cup and began to flip a few switches on the coffee machine as he thought about what Tadashi had said.

_"He's scared that he's going to have to choose between his family and the passion that makes him who he is."_

That _did_ sound like a tough decision.

_"That isn't easy for a twelve year old to go through."_

No. No, it couldn't be easy….

Maybe Hiro would give Miguel a chance…

…Just a small one, though.

* * *

**Present:**

**January 9th, San Fransokyo Hospital**

Hiro came around, agonizingly slowly. He pried his eyes open, looking around at what even his puzzled mind knew was a hospital room, and he twitched his fingers experimentally. He didn't feel… in pain, exactly. He could feel pain tugging at the edges of his mind, but its bite was lost in the haze that engulfed his entire being; Hiro couldn't remember feeling like this… ever, and his mind felt too sluggish and muddled to place the experience.

His fingers finally began to move, and he started trying to move the rest of his body to ensure it was all still there. His mind felt disconnected from his body, and the confused part of his brain (which, in reality, was most of his brain) wondered if he was in his body at all. The movement of his fingertips proved otherwise, thankfully, and he turned his head to the side, rolling his shoulders and moving his elbows, grateful when his mind finally connected to his arms, proving that this haze was not deterring his ability to move.

His back and torso moved when he commanded them to, and his upper legs seemed to work fine. He was feeling confident when he reached his lower legs, flexing the toes on his right foot. He moved to the left foot with the intent of wiggling his toes.

Nothing.

Hiro felt a flush of panic flood his system, and his breathing hitched as he tried again, only to get the same result, which was absolutely nothing. No movement, no feeling.

Hiro was not one to cry in public, but he couldn't help it this time as tears flowed from his eyes, streaming down his cheeks, and he rapidly began to hyperventilate.

The heart monitor began beeping faster, and the door opened to reveal Tadashi, his back to Hiro as he used his back to open the door, his hands holding two water bottles and his book bag, leaving no hand free to open the door.

He turned and stopped in his tracks when he saw Hiro awake and breathing quickly, not to mention crying.

"Hiro!" Tadashi cried, setting down the stuff in his hands on a nearby table to sit in the chair by Hiro's bedside. "Hiro, what's wrong?"

"Tadashi, I can't feel my left leg," Hiro managed, crying harder as he said it aloud. Saying it aloud made it feel real, more real than Hiro was prepared for.

A flash of fear crossed Tadashi's face.

"I'll go get the doctor," Hiro's older brother assured him, darting to the door and flagging down a nurse, asking for someone named Dr. Forest. The young man quickly rushed back to his brother's side, and he took Hiro's hand, trying to calm the hysterical teenager down.

"Hiro… Hiro, I know you're scared, but panicking is not going to help. We're going to figure this out," Tadashi told him.

"Promise?" Hiro asked, feeling childish but not particularly caring in that moment.

Tadashi nodded. "I promise."

The door opened again, and a tall young man, almost looking too young to be a doctor, walked in with a clipboard.

"Hiro," he said. "It's good to see that you're awake. Are you in any pain?"

Hiro shook his head. "No, but… I can't feel my left leg."

The doctor looked calm, too calm, as he pulled a small object from his pocket. It looked kind of like a push pin, but not quite as sharp.

"All right," Dr. Forest stated. "I'm going to touch this to your foot. Tell me when you feel something."

He started with Hiro's right foot, even though his left leg was the problem, and as he lightly brushed the object on the arch of Hiro's foot, his foot twitched involuntarily.

"You felt that?" Dr. Forest asked, and Hiro nodded. "That's good. Now for the left foot. Tell me when you feel something."

Dr. Forest repeated the process with his left foot, but this time, he received no reaction. No instinctive twitch, no reflex, no movement at all.

The doctor's calm exterior began to look more serious and grave, like someone bearing bad news, and Hiro swallowed as the doctor began moving the object up his leg, barely brushing the skin, waiting for a reaction.

And finally, a spark of feeling.

"There," Hiro told him when the object was about an inch above his knee.

The doctor nodded and pocketed the object as he took a seat in a chair at the end of the bed to be eye level with Hiro.

"Hiro, what do you remember?" Dr. Forest questioned.

"I remember… there was a fire, wasn't there?" Hiro answered. The memory was fuzzy at best and missing large chunks of information, but he remembered the heat and the jaw rattling boom of the explosion. "Did the fire burn my leg or something?"

The doctor shook his head. "No. You were lucky on that part. Despite being pretty close when the building exploded, the flames mostly missed you, only causing a few burns that should heal fully with time. Unfortunately, the explosion knocked you back, and your head and back hit the ground really hard. The trauma… severed the connections between your brain and the nerves in your left leg," the doctor explained, wording the statement delicately.

Hiro took a rattling breath. "Can you fix it?"

The expression on the doctor's face did not look promising. "I'm afraid not. You'll need a brace, and with it and some physical therapy, you should be able to walk again. I'm not going to lie to you, Hiro. Your leg will never be the same, but with support from your family," he said, nodding to Tadashi, "you will adjust to this change."

Hiro nodded, feeling shaken by the huge change his life was about to endure but not wanting to waste any time. He was attending college; he had a great friendship going on with Miguel; his life was taking off, and he would get back on his feet… figuratively and literally.

"When do I start?"

The doctor smiled. "That's the spirit. I'll talk to your aunt, and we can work on getting a brace for you as soon as possible."

Dr. Forest exited the room, and Hiro turned to his grinning brother.

"I knew you would be strong," Tadashi told him.

Hiro nodded. "Well, I have a great role model. Two great role models, actually. Speaking of which, where's Miguel? I didn't think he'd leave my side," Hiro chuckled.

Tadashi's smile abruptly faded, and Hiro's smile wasn't far behind when he noticed the troubled look on his older brother's face.

"Tadashi, why are you looking at me like that? Where's Miguel?" Hiro demanded. When Tadashi didn't reply, he repeated, louder and firmer and much more fearful. "Where's Miguel, Tadashi?"

Tadashi sighed. "Hiro… Miguel was inside the building when it exploded. This was all they found," he told Hiro, reaching into his bag and retrieving a red hoodie, handing it to Hiro. It was covered with ashes and had a few holes burned in the fabric, but it was still recognizable as Miguel's.

"But they didn't find his body. He could still be alive," Hiro begged, refusing to admit his best friend was gone forever.

"Hiro," Tadashi whispered, tears filling his own eyes, but he refused to let them fall. He needed to be strong for his little brother right now. "No one could have survived that explosion."

Hiro dissolved into tears, and he felt any hope he had left drain out of him. His best friend was gone for good. Nothing seemed to matter anymore as his tears turned to heart wrenching sobs, and he buried his face in the hoodie. It smelled of smoke and fire, but it still smelled like Miguel, and it only made Hiro cry harder as Tadashi wrapped his arms around him, allowing the young boy to scream into his chest in a sound that broke every heart within twenty feet of the hospital room.

Miguel was gone, and Hiro was still here…

How was that fair?

* * *

_NOTES:_

_1\. Honey Lemon's name. I have not read the comics, but from my limited knowledge, her real name is Aiko, I think, but in the movie and TV show, she is just Honey Lemon with no canon 'real' name. I gave her the name Valentina because if I am making her Miguel's family, it makes more sense for her to have a Spanish name, and Valentina just seemed to fit her._

_2\. Hiro's injury. I am not a doctor. I do not claim to be a doctor and have very limited medical knowledge and most of the knowledge I do have is from TV and fictional books, which are not always reliable. Therefore, I hope the injury is realistic, but if it is not, please don't read too much into it because, once again, I am not a doctor._


	3. Every Road You Take

**Disclaimer: I do not own Coco, Big Hero 6, the characters, or anything else that you recognize.**

* * *

**Past:**

**October 31st, Hamada Household**

Hiro knew something was wrong the minute Tadashi entered the room.

Tadashi's forehead was creased with worry, and his usual smile was no where in sight as he hung up the phone and stuck his cell phone in his pocket.

"What's wrong?" Hiro asked, looking up from his comic book.

"Miguel is missing," Tadashi informed him.

Nothing could have prepared Hiro for the wash of concern, the rush of panic in his veins at the news. Hiro didn't entirely understand the feeling. Their so called friendship was anything but friendly since they met two and half months ago, and nothing had changed, although Tadashi and Honey Lemon refused to give up and kept pushing them together, much to Hiro and Miguel's irritation. But hearing Miguel was missing… that made Hiro's heart skip a beat.

"Missing… Like _oh, he stayed out too late_ or missing, like, _police investigation missing_?" Hiro asked, sitting up on his bed and closing his comic book.

Tadashi shrugged, sitting beside Hiro. "A little bit of both," he answered. "His family found out he loved music and destroyed a guitar Miguel made himself. Miguel ran away, and his family's looking for him. If he isn't home by the end of the day tomorrow, they're reporting him missing. They called Honey Lemon just in case he went there. You haven't heard from him, have you?"

Hiro shook his head. "No," he replied as he stood up, threw his comic book on the desk, and tossed on his blue hoodie.

"Where are you going?" Tadashi inquired, standing up himself.

"To look for him," Hiro said from the doorway as he ran down the steps.

"I thought you said Miguel was annoying!" Tadashi called after him, and if the situation were anything but this, Tadashi would've been smiling with pride.

"That doesn't mean I want him to be kidnapped or hurt or something," Hiro yelled back, but before Tadashi could catch up, Hiro was in the garage and taking his older brother's scooter, revving the engine and pulling out of the garage and into the street.

Hiro didn't care that he wasn't allowed to drive Tadashi's scooter or drive at all, for that matter. Hiro didn't particularly care for Miguel, but images of Miguel hurt or abducted or worse flashed in front of his eyes, and he put the pedal to the metal, driving at a speed that would have put Tadashi's friend GoGo to shame.

It was an hour long drive to Santa Cecilia, but Hiro made it in less than forty-five. It was a miracle he didn't get pulled over, but being a bot fighter meant Hiro did know how to avoid the police.

Hiro had never been to Santa Cecilia. Miguel came up to Honey Lemon's apartment on the weekend, and Hiro and Miguel would always meet there while Hiro's brother and Miguel's cousin either went out with their friends or went to SFIT to work on their projects.

Santa Cecilia was more beautiful than Hiro could've imagined. It was a small town and a bit run down and old fashioned. The buildings were large and spacious, and people stood on their porches, sweeping or setting up decorations Hiro assumed were for Day Of The Dead, a holiday he knew of but didn't know much about. He felt like Miguel had mentioned it at some point, but Hiro didn't listen to Miguel much, anyway.

He truly regretted that now. If he had listened, maybe Miguel would've mentioned a place he would get away to, a place he spent most of his time, somewhere he would go if he ever needed to escape.

Hiro didn't go to the Riveras. Miguel wouldn't go back there, at least not this soon, and from the little Hiro did know about Miguel, his family didn't know him any more than Hiro did, at least not the real him, so going there wouldn't get Miguel found any faster.

Tadashi said Miguel didn't have many friends, so it was unlikely he would have someone to go to, which meant neighbors and classmates were out. Chances are, Miguel was under a bridge or in a back alleyway, just taking some time to cool down.

By the time Hiro had searched as much of the town as he could, it was almost dawn, and he still hadn't found Miguel. It's like Miguel had simply disappeared, and that thought made Hiro's heart rate accelerate with fear of what that could've meant for Miguel.

Hiro kicked a pebble as he walked through the cemetery when his eyes landed on a mausoleum up ahead, something about a musician named De La Cruz.

Wait.

_"Can we at least listen to good music?" Hiro complained as the deep voice of a man played over the radio, a song called Remembrance or Remember Me or something like that._

_Miguel looked more offended than Hiro had thought he would be._

_"This is good music. De La Cruz is the best musician of all time," Miguel exclaimed._

Hiro ran up the hill towards the mausoleum, opening the doors, thankful they had been left unlocked, and the light of the rising sun fell upon an unconscious or sleeping (hopefully sleeping) figure.

Miguel lay surrounded by orange petals with a white guitar in his hand. His favorite red hoodie was missing, and without it, Miguel looked even smaller than usual.

Once again, Hiro wasn't prepared for the panic to flood his body, and he was reminded of the panic he felt when Tadashi and he had a fight and his brother had left to calm down. Hiro had stewed in his anger for a few hours, but when midnight came and went and still no Tadashi, that rage turned to worry. Tadashi came home around seven in the morning after partying with some friends, and Tadashi had not expected Hiro to come flying at him the minute he walked through the door. This concern for Miguel was a lot like his worry over Tadashi had felt like.

Hiro fell to his knees beside Miguel, rolling the boy onto his back. He was relieved when he saw no noticeable injuries on the twelve year old, but that relief faded when Miguel didn't react to the sudden movement at all.

"Miguel? Miguel, wake up!" Hiro cried, and he was extremely grateful when Miguel opened his eyes, looking a little out of it but otherwise fine.

"Hiro?" Miguel asked. "What are you doing here?"

_"What am I doing here?"_ Hiro repeated. "I've been looking for you all night! You went missing. Did you expect me _not_ to come looking for you?"

Miguel shrugged. "Honestly, I kind of expected you to be happy I was gone."

Hiro pursed his lips. "As long as I'm being perfectly truthful, I didn't expect to be so worried either, but… I was. More worried than you know. Where have you been? Have you been here all night?"

Miguel blinked before his brown eyes suddenly widened, and he shot to his feet, guitar in hand.

"Miguel!" Hiro called as his… friend… raced out of the building and down the street. "What are you doing? Miguel, where are you going?" Hiro yelled as he ran after the obviously frantic boy.

Hiro whirled around the corner to find Miguel racing towards his home, and he called after him, "Miguel, slow down!"

Meanwhile, Honey Lemon and Tadashi had arrived at the Rivera house after discovering Miguel hadn't returned home, and Tadashi was explaining something to the Rivera family, who had gathered around the college students with hopeful glances, wondering if Miguel had shown up at Valentina's apartment.

"Hiro left last night to look for Miguel-" Tadashi was saying when a familiar voice shouted from nearby:

"Miguel, slow down!"

Tadashi turned. "Hiro?" he murmured, puzzled, as two boys sprinted around the corner, Miguel running as though rabid dogs were nipping at his heels, Hiro not too far behind.

"Miguel?" Enrique said, relieved but perplexed at his son's frantic behavior.

Miguel raced right through the gathered Riveras, scattering his confused relatives as he ran towards the building behind them, but his grandmother, Elena, cut him off before he could run inside.

"Where have you been?" she demanded, hands on her hips as she intercepted her grandson every time he tried to get around her. "Do you know how worried we were? What are you doing with that?" she screamed, pointing to the guitar as though it were a shot of heroin and not an innocent instrument.

"I need to see Mamá Coco, please!" Miguel begged as Hiro caught up to him, and Miguel ducked around his grandmother and raced inside, followed by Hiro.

"Miguel, what is going on?" Hiro asked as Miguel shut the door behind them.

Miguel didn't answer as he knelt by his great grandmother where she say in her wheelchair, her gaze of someone who wasn't entirely there.

Hiro knew Honey Lemon's great grandmother had dementia, but he didn't know it was this bad as Miguel displayed a photograph ripped in the corner, tears in his eyes.

"Mamá Coco!" Miguel exclaimed. "This is your papá. Please, you need to remember him or he'll be gone forever!"

That didn't make a lot of sense, but Hiro could tell this was important to Miguel, so he joined Miguel beside the older woman, a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder as Miguel began to cry.

The door opened behind them, and the entire Rivera family stormed inside.

"Miguel, what are you doing?" Elena squawked. "First, you disappear. Then, you come home and bother Mamá Coco when she needs to rest. You have some explaining to do."

But Miguel didn't explain as his tears slowed to a stop, and a hopeful look of realization crossed his face.

He grabbed the guitar from where he had placed it beside him on the floor, and he began to strum the strings. Then… he started to sing.

Hiro had heard Miguel sing before, but he had never really played attention. Now that he was… Miguel did have a great voice, and his guitar playing was great for someone who had taught themselves… in secret… on a guitar made out of stuff he had salvaged from the garbage.

_"Remember me,"_ Miguel sang, and Hiro recognized the words, but the tone of the song was more of a lullaby than the loud, exotic, fast paced version he'd heard on the radio. _"Remember me, though I have to travel far. Remember me each time you hear a sad guitar."_

Coco looked up, slowly, as some light seeped back into her eyes, and she began to murmur the words, singing along.

_"Know that I'm with you the only way that I can be,"_ they sang in unison_, "Until you're in my arms again. Remember me…"_

Coco smiled, not seeming to notice the shocked and tearful glances of her family as she met Miguel's eyes.

"My papá used to sing that to me every night before bed," she told her great grandson.

Miguel nodded, tearfully. "He loved you, Mamá Coco. Your papá loved you so much."

Coco looked surprised at that statement, probably wondering how Miguel could've known that, and for the first time, she seemed to notice the audience at the door.

"What's wrong, Elena?" she asked her crying daughter.

Elena sniffled. "Nothing, Mamá. Nothing at all."

Coco reached into her bed side drawer and pulled our a red notebook.

"I kept his letters," she said, and she handed Miguel a piece of paper… the missing part of the ripped photograph in his hand.

Miguel sat up and hugged his great grandmother before turning and embracing his parents, as well.

He sat back down on the floor, and he listened intently as Mamá Coco began to speak.

"He used to write me a letter every night, and he would come home every weekend while he was on tour to see us. One time, Mamá…"

Miguel reached over and wrapped an arm around Hiro, who was surprised but pleasantly so, and he returned the embrace.

Neither boy noticed Tadashi and Honey Lemon smile at each other behind them.

* * *

**Present:**

**February 1st, Hamada Household**

"Honey Lemon came back to school today," Tadashi stated as he placed his backpack on their desk. "She's still broken up, but… she's doing better."

"And you wish you could say the same about me," Hiro finished. Tadashi didn't need to say that for Hiro to know he was thinking it.

Tadashi shrugged, sitting in the desk chair to look at his brother, who was simply laying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. There wasn't even a book or device in his hands. His eyes were empty and a million miles or perhaps a million hours away from the here and now.

"I'm not going to lie," Tadashi said. "I wish you were doing better."

"I lost Miguel, Tadashi. How do you think I should be doing?" Hiro asked.

Tadashi pursed his lips. "I know that Miguel wouldn't want you to lay in your bed all day when there's a whole world out there waiting for you. He'd want you to-"

"Move on?" Hiro demanded. "People always say that the dead would want us to move on, but it's easier said than done, isn't it? How would you be acting if you lost me? How would I be acting if I lost you, Tadashi? It's not as simple as moving on."

Tadashi wanted to protest, but he thought about what Hiro said, about how Tadashi would be acting if he lost Hiro, and he realized that Hiro was right in a way. Maybe he should be making more of an effort to live his life, but… he still made a point.

Tadashi sighed, standing up and placing his favorite hat upon his head. "I'm going out with Honey Lemon, Wasabi, Fred, and GoGo. We'll be gone most of the night, but I should be back before morning. You make a point, Hiro, but it's not an excuse for you to stop trying. At least get out of bed. Do your exercises, take a shower, brush your hair, change your clothes. Seriously, didn't you wear that yesterday? And the day before that?"

Hiro didn't reply.

"I'll take that as a yes," Tadashi muttered before continuing. "Hiro, I know it's not easy, but please… at least try. If not for me, for Miguel, for his family, who are grieving just as much as you."

Hiro heard their bedroom door shut behind Tadashi, and he sat up, grabbing his brace off the floor, which was a simple looking object with a few metallic parts but with cloth and other materials as well. Hiro swung his legs over the side of the bed, and he placed his foot on the sole of the brace, and buckled it across his ankle, half way up his calf, and just above his knee. The brace didn't fix his leg, and while it didn't make walking any _easier_, it made walking _possible_.

Hiro stood, and he took a step, dragging his dead leg behind him, before swinging it forward and putting weight on it. His confidence strengthened when he remained standing, but as he took another step, he lost his balance and went crashing to the ground.

"Ow!" Hiro yelled, pounding the floor in frustration, and he stood, dragging his dead leg as he made his way to the bed in a less than graceful fashion. Once he made it to the bed, he sat down, and just as he was beginning to unbuckle his brace, he heard a whirring sound from behind him, followed by a noise that resembled the sound a balloon made when it inflated.

Hiro turned around to see a red case beside Tadashi's bed lighting up as a familiar white object expanded from it, stepping out of the case and trying to maneuver around Tadashi's bookcase, knocking several of the books off in the process.

The object finally stopped beside Hiro, waving a balloon-like white hand in a circular motion.

"Hello," it greeted in a (fitting) robotic monotone. "I am Baymax, your personal health care companion. I was alerted to the need for medical attention when you said ow," Baymax informed him, lifting a fact stating finger for emphasis.

Hiro blinked; he had met Baymax on one occasion, the night he decided on going out for the showcase when Tadashi took him and Miguel to SFIT after a particularly bad bot fighting incident that resulted in Hiro and Tadashi getting arrested and Aunt Cass and Miguel having to come bail them out. He had thought Baymax was a bit strange but impressive, and his views hadn't changed.

"Oh, hey, Baymax," Hiro said. "I didn't know Tadashi brought you home."

"Are you injured?" Baymax inquired, tilting his head slightly.

"No. Well, no more than usual," Hiro mumbled.

"I will scan you now," Baymax stated.

"Don't scan me," Hiro commanded, pointing a warning finger at the robotic nurse, as Hiro called him.

"Scan complete," Baymax announced.

"Unbelievable," Hiro grumbled, sounding just like his older brother.

"You appear to have severe nerve damage in your left leg," Baymax told him, a diagram of a male body appearing on his belly with the left leg highlighted in red to indicate the injury. "This is a very painful and debilitating condition-"

"You don't need to tell me twice," Hiro responded, rubbing his left hip and upper leg with a wince at the sharp jolt of pain that came with trying to walk.

"-however, walking and living with this injury is possible through physical therapy, a good support system, and a determined attitude."

"Huh?" Hiro asked, wondering if he had heard that right. That would make sense coming from a doctor, but a robot?

"Yes, according to my database, a positive attitude, including: determination and: the ability to make the best out of a situation can help with recovery and learning to live with an injury that cannot be fully healed," Baymax listed.

Hiro nodded. "Great," he murmured, not really listening to Baymax as he adjusted the brace on his leg, unsure if he should unbuckle the brace and call it a day or give walking another shot.

Hiro started to stumble towards his desk when he abruptly tripped and landed on the floor with a brief shout of surprise.

"You have fallen," Baymax stated.

"You think?" Hiro groaned as he began to push himself off the floor, only to pause as a tiny but noticeable sound met his ears from somewhere nearby.

A small clicking sound drew his attention to the mess under is bed, and curiously, he followed the sound, grabbing a pair of dirty clothes. They had some ashes and burn marks on them, undoubtedly the ones he had worn to the showcase, the ones he had stashed under his bed, never wanting to see them again, but too distraught over Miguel's death to actually throw them away.

Hiro reached into the pocket of the pants and grabbed a struggling microbot as it wiggled in his palm, as though being pulled by a magnet.

"Dumb thing's broken," Hiro concluded, tossing it in a random Petri dish he found lying on the desk. He sat in his desk chair, ignoring the microbot and Baymax as he started clicking on his computer, looking for a game to play. Bot fighting was out; he could never run with his leg, so he searched for other online games to sooth his competitive nature.

"Your tiny robot is trying to go somewhere," Baymax observed.

"Uh huh," Hiro deadpanned over his shoulder, not really paying attention. "Why don't you see where it's trying to go?" he suggested, sarcastically.

The sound of a door closing had Hiro looking away from his computer to see Baymax missing and the microbot gone.

"Baymax?" he called before looking out the window to see the snowman shaped robot waddling down the street with his eyes facing down as he following the direction the microbot was drawn to.

"Baymax!" Hiro yelled, running for the stairs, barely noticing the fact that two minutes ago, he couldn't even walk, and now, he was using the stairs by himself, too focused on getting to Baymax.

Hiro stumbled into the café, and ignoring the confused and sympathetic looks of the costumers upon seeing a crippled boy dash through the café like a madman, he scrambled towards the door, only to be cut off by Aunt Cass.

"Hiro!" She exclaimed in surprise. "Your leg… did you use the stairs? All by yourself?"

"Yeah!" Hiro bared his teeth in what he hoped was a convincing smile as he looked around Cass, searching the crowded street outside for Baymax. "I've been doing my exercises, and I thought I'd go for a walk, maybe stop by SFIT to enroll."

"That's great!" Cass grinned, embracing him tightly. "I'm swamped here, but keep your phone on you at all times and stay out of the street. Call me or Tadashi if you need anything."

"Thanks, Aunt Cass!" Hiro squeaked before sprinting out the door the minute she turned around. He almost tumbled head over heels while crossing the street, but he regained his balance and hurried after Baymax's figure, which was getting further and further away.

After a comically long adventure of crowds, buses, alleys, and one really ticked off cat, Hiro finally caught up to the robot in front of an abandoned warehouse.

Hiro skidded to a halt beside Baymax, breathing heavily with one hand on his right knee and the other grasping his hip as pain flared through the left side of his lower body, adrenaline wearing off, replaced by a deeply rooted ache that had him clenching his teeth in pain. He vaguely wondered how on earth he was going to get home. He could never complete that trip again, and it would be hard to explain to Tadashi why he was at least two miles away from home with Baymax.

"Are you crazy?" he demanded.

"I have found where your tiny robot is trying to go," Baymax answered, and Hiro groaned in frustration.

"I told you! It's broken! It's not trying to go anywhere, and… wait a minute," Hiro abruptly stopped his rant upon realizing that something was off about his microbot. It clicked against the side of the Petri dish, as though trying to fly into the warehouse, like it was drawn to something.

Okay, Hiro had to admit. That was weird, and it was almost worth the painful trip to get here. Almost.

"Let's check it out," Hiro proposed, and with the warehouse doors hopelessly locked, he took a step to head towards an open window on the second floor, only to have his legs crumple underneath him.

"You have fallen," Baymax stated. "Hiro, you have pushed your injury too far for one day, and it is causing you great pain. I suggest you rest."

"No. I need to figure out what's going on with this microbot," Hiro decided, determination in his expression, as he forced himself back onto his feet, pulling himself up with one hand on the door handle. He bit back a groan and leaned against the door before setting off towards the window once again.

Hiro searched the surrounding areas for some way to reach the window, and when his eyes landed on Baymax, an idea formed in his head, and a mischievous smile crossed his face.

"I do not believe this is safe," Baymax was advising a moment later as Hiro stood on top of his head, cursing his lack of balance and using all of his strength to pull himself through the open window. Luckily, the action required his arms and not his legs; at least his arms were in working order, albeit a little on the weaker side. He still managed to pull himself up onto the window sill and into the warehouse.

Hiro found himself staring at a dark and dusty (but still very clean for a supposedly abandoned warehouse) platform overlooking the first floor, but it was too dark to see anything below him.

Hiro started walking forward, only to jump at a strange sound from behind him, and as he whirled around, he found Baymax stuffed half way through the window, and if this situation were any less serious, Hiro would've laughed.

"I am stuck. I will deflate," Baymax said, curtly, and a rather embarrassing and much too loud sound emitted from Baymax as air whooshed out of his body, which began to flatten.

Hiro winced. Any chance they had of the element of surprise was long gone, assuming there was anybody here.

"Are you done?" he asked, and one last whoosh completed the deflation.

Baymax climbed in through the window and looked up at Hiro with expressionless digital eyes.

"I will inflate now," he said, and Hiro stared at the robot.

"Okay, just do it quietly," Hiro replied, not sure if he should laugh or face palm, so he settled on descending the stairs to the first floor to explore the mysterious and downright eerie warehouse.

Hiro crept through the dark space, turning the corner, before rethinking this action and doubled back to grab the best weapon he could find- a broom- and tip toed around the corner once more.

A machine he recognized from the showcase- one that could construct an invention if you coded the designs into the machine- was building a familiar object, and Hiro resisted the urge to gasp as he watched the machine take the newly made micro-bot and drop it in a barrel of hundreds of other microbots.

Hiro turned to see dozens of other barrels nearly overflowing with microbots lined up through the entire warehouse, and he set the broom aside as he approached a barrel. Hiro's eyes widened in realization as he dug his hands into a barrel and let the tiny robots run over his hands and through his fingers before they tumbled into the barrel once more.

"My microbots," he whispered, a piece of the puzzle clicking into place. "Someone's making more…"

"Hello, Hiro."

Hiro leaped about a foot in the air at the sudden voice, and he stumbled back against the barrel as he came face to face with Baymax.

"Don't do that!" he exclaimed, reminding himself to keep quiet in case someone else was in the warehouse. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"I am equipped with defibrillators," Baymax informed him, rubbing his hands together until a soft blue glow emanated from the vinyl. He began shuffling towards Hiro. "Clear."

"Woah, no!" Hiro whisper-shouted, stopping Baymax from getting any closer. "It's just an expression!"

"Oh," Baymax stated, lowering his hands to Hiro's relief.

Before Hiro could formulate a response or next course of action, a shifting, grinding sound had him freezing in place, and he slowly turned around to see the microbots lifting out of the barrels to form a tidal wave of darkness. At the other end of the warehouse, a man dressed in black with some kind of painted red mask (a Kabuki mask) stood on a cat walk, the microbots heeding his call as they gathered around him.

"Run!" Hiro yelled, nearly tripping as he darted (well, more like galloped with his injured leg remaining rigid and refusing to answer his orders) towards the stairs, only to pause as he noticed Baymax was no longer by his side but was instead lumbering at an infuriatingly slow pace.

"I am not fast," Baymax explained.

Hiro ran back and grabbed Baymax's arm, dragging him along towards the window they had used as an entrance and now needed to use as an exit.

"Yeah, no kidding!" Hiro yelled over the metallic clacking of microbots pursuing them.

The next minute or two was spent dodging microbots, maneuvering around stuff in the warehouse, and even shoving Baymax through a vent to reach the window, but in the end, Baymax got stuck in the window once more.

Hiro shoved the robot, trying to push him out of the window.

"Come on, Baymax, suck it in!" Hiro shouted, knowing that wouldn't work, but having no idea what else to do as the microbots got closer.

Hiro gave one last push, and he felt a shift; he had one moment of relief before the window flipped around, leaving Baymax still stuck in the window, but now, Hiro was clinging to Baymax's leg two stories above the ground.

"Oh, no," Baymax summed up, and Hiro only had a brief second to think about what that meant before the microbots propelled Baymax out of the window, and suddenly, they were falling.

Baymax flipped around, enveloping Hiro in his arms, and Hiro screamed before giving an _oof_ as Baymax hit the ground first. Hiro was safely cushioned on Baymax's stomach, and he bounced off of Baymax, somersaulting through the air and landing on his bottom, winded and disoriented but alive.

Hiro winced as the landing jostled his bad leg, and he inhaled, deeply, trying to bite back a groan of pain as he struggled to his feet.

"Hiro, your leg needs to rest," Baymax pointed out.

Hiro nodded, hand on his aching hip and rubbing his thigh as though that would make the pain fade.

"Yeah, I know. First, we need to report that guy. Then… Then I'll nap for a week. How does that sound?" Hiro gasped, still trying to force down the pain. A freaking super villain had stolen Hiro's microbots to do who knows what with them and had just attacked them because they had seen too much. Hiro didn't know what that guy's plan was, but whatever it was couldn't be good. _That_ was more important than a little pain.

(Okay, a _lot_ of pain.)

Hiro took a step, swallowing a groan, before pushing forward, Baymax following behind him as he retraced his steps to the road. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the nearest police station.

One long explanation later…

"So let me get this straight. A man in a Kabuki mask attacked you and balloon man with a bunch of tiny robots-"

"Microbots," Hiro corrected, holding out the Petri disk with the singular, twitching microbot inside of it.

"Using telekinesis," the police officer drawled.

"No!" Hiro exclaimed. "He controlled the microbots using a neuro-cranial transmitter."

The police officer stared at him, skeptically.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I'm telling the truth!" Hiro said, defiantly, ignoring Baymax as he patched up holes in his vinyl with tape.

The police officer raised his eyebrows. "Okay, kid, let's call your parents," he began, turning around to grab the phone, but when he returned his gaze to the kid and the robot, he found both of them gone with his tape dispenser on the floor, whirring as it hit the doors.

Outside, Hiro sighed, limping down the sidewalk with Baymax beside him.

"I should've known they wouldn't believe me," Hiro muttered, but before he could get any further than that, Baymax suddenly stopped short, doubling over like a rag doll and making Hiro spin around in confusion.

"Baymax? What's wrong?" Hiro questioned.

"Low battery!" Baymax squealed like a drunk person, spinning around on the spot. He would've fallen over if Hiro hadn't lunged forward to catch him.

_"Of course!"_ Hiro said with no real bite but a heck of a lot of sarcasm as he began lugging the robot towards the café, dragging his dead leg on the ground.

Well, by the time they reached the café, the sun was going down, and it was dinner time. Hiro was in a whole new world of pain as he had to literally pick up his leg and swing it through the doorway to get over the threshold.

Hiro pulled Baymax inside and shut the door behind him, panting from the exertion.

"Okay, if my aunt or Tadashi asks, we were at school _all day,"_ Hiro told Baymax.

"We jumped out a window," Baymax recalled, loudly.

"Shh!" Hiro hushed.

"We jumped out a window!" Baymax hissed.

"You cannot say stuff like that in front of Aunt Cass or Tadashi," Hiro demanded, practically begging. "They will freak!"

"Hiro?" Aunt Cass called from upstairs. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, Aunt Cass, it's me!" Hiro responded. "I'll be up in a second," he added, holding a finger to his lips to shush Baymax and Baymax returned the action with a high pitched giggle.

Deeming it safe (as safe as it could be with a super villain on the loose and a drunken robot ready to tell your overprotective aunt that you jumped out of a second story window and nearly got killed by a man in a Kabuki mask), Hiro climbed the stairs, grunting from the pain and effort it took to ascend the steps, an action he had taken for granted most of his life.

"Aw, honey, is your leg bothering you?" Aunt Cass asked in concern, seeing Hiro's expression of discomfort as he finally made it to the top of the stairs.

Hiro nodded. "Yeah. I think I overdid it. If it's all right with you, I think I might go to bed early."

Aunt Cass nodded, turning around to prepare a plate for him. "Well, Tadashi should be home in a few hours. He's been working so hard, so I told him he could stay out all night if he wanted to, as long as he called me at least once to check in. You can take a plate upstairs. We're having wings."

"Weeeeeee!" Baymax squealed as he stumbled up the stairs behind Hiro, and Hiro rushed to quiet him.

"Yeah, weeeengs!" Aunt Cass agreed, not really paying attention as she busied herself with preparing Hiro's plate.

Hiro pushed Baymax up the stairs, and he cringed as a crash sounded, Baymax having knocked something over at the top of the steps.

Aunt Cass paused. "What was that?" she asked, turning to face Hiro.

"Mochi," Hiro lied, gritting his teeth in a nervous smile. "That darn cat."

Aunt Cass blinked before shrugging and turning her focus back to Hiro's plate.

Hiro looked down to see Mochi rubbing against his legs, and unsure of what else to do, he picked up the cat and tossed him up the stairs, jumping a little at the howl Mochi gave and the clumsy thump that sounded when Mochi landed.

Aunt Cass turned around, handing Hiro his plate, and Hiro kissed his aunt on the cheek, yelling a quick thanks as he sped up the stairs, missing his aunt's fond smile behind his back. She was glad to see her nephew actually look… well, not happy necessarily, but… better. Managing.

Hiro found himself at the top of the stairs, not sure how he managed to get there, as he glanced at Baymax, drowsily petting Mochi ("Hairy baby," Baymax called him). Hiro couldn't help but laugh as he set Mochi on the floor and helped Baymax into his charging station.

Trying to ignore the sharp daggers of pain in his leg, Hiro set his plate on the desk and collapsed onto his bed, removing the brace and abandoning it on the floor.

The pain didn't fade, but it stopped getting worse, so that was something, Hiro decided as he stared at the ceiling, breathing through the fire coursing through his leg and cursing up a storm in his head at the painful inconvenience that was his injury.

"Miguel."

Hiro forced himself to sit up at the sudden mention of his friend, and he found Baymax, fully inflated and charging, standing in the red station against the wall, his gaze on the red jacket thrown over Hiro's desk chair.

"Miguel's gone," Hiro replied as he laid back down, and in that moment, he was actually grateful for the physical pain because while it didn't chase away the grief, it made the emotional agony of losing Miguel a little less intense, at least for the time being.

"When will he return?" Baymax asked, obliviously.

"He's dead, Baymax," Hiro said, flatly and directly. "He's not coming back."

"Miguel is here."

"No," Hiro snapped. "They say he's not really gone as long as we remember him… It still hurts."

A beat of silence before a sudden flicker of lights had Hiro sitting up once more to see Baymax standing beside the computer on the desk, pictures flashing across both the computer screen and Baymax's torso.

"What are you doing?" Hiro wondered.

"I am downloading a data base on: personal loss," Baymax declared. "Strategies to help with personal loss are: counseling: and contact with loved ones. I am contacting them now," Baymax added as pictures of Fred, Wasabi, Honey Lemon, GoGo, and Tadashi appeared on his torso, and Hiro shot straight up, hopping (well, he was doing more falling than anything else) across the room to stop Baymax.

"Friends contacted," Baymax notified.

Hiro rolled his eyes. "Unbelievable," he muttered as he grabbed the Petri dish out of his pocket, watching the microbot clink around inside of it. Hiro sat down at the desk chair, Petri dish in front of him, as the pieces of the puzzle whirled around inside of his brain before one connection stood out above everything else.

"That guy stole my microbots. _He_ started the fire," Hiro realized, red hot anger and determination burning in his chest. "_He's_ responsible for Miguel."

Baymax blinked, merely watching Hiro as an idea, a plan, formed in his mind.

"We've gotta catch that guy!" Hiro concluded with a firm nod of finality.

_Miguel had his whole life ahead of him, _Hiro thought_, and this guy took all of that away from him. He will not get away with it._

Hiro grabbed his brace, pain forgotten as his plan cemented itself in place.

_Don't worry, Miguel, _Hiro thought_. I won't let you down._

* * *

I cannot remember if I mentioned this in an earlier chapter, but after Day Of The Dead, Miguel replaces the jacket. I might include something about that in a flashback, but in case I forget, I wanted to explain why he has a red jacket after losing his in the Land of the Dead.

Thank you for reading! Sorry about the wait.


	4. What's Small Turns To A Friendship

_This has not been edited, so please forgive any mistakes that are probably present in this chapter._

**_Disclaimer: I do not own Big Hero 6, Coco, or the characters._**

* * *

**Chapter 4:**

**Past:**

**November 1st, Rivera Household**

"So why did you get so worried about me?"

Hiro glanced up from where he was sweeping up some orange petals off the street, looking to Miguel, who was staring at the ground, lightly dusting the petal covered ground with his broom but it was clear he wasn't focused on the task at hand.

"What do you mean?" Hiro asked, turning back to the ground as he pushed some petals into a dustpan with the bristles of his broom.

"Well, a week ago, you couldn't stand to be in the same room with me, and then, I go missing, and you probably worried more than my parents did," Miguel laughed, but he did made a good point.

Hiro shrugged. "I don't really know myself. All I know is that Tadashi told me you were missing, and… I felt more worried than I have in a long time… But if you tell anyone I said that, I'll use you as a distraction when I'm getting chased by angry bot fighters."

Miguel chuckled, momentarily stopping his sweeping. "Something tells me you'd do that anyway."

Hiro tilted his head back and forth in mock consideration. "True," he finally decided, making both of them laugh. "But I have to ask… what happened?"

Miguel paused, as if considering something, before finally answering, "I wanted to play in the talent show, but I didn't have an instrument, so I tried to, erm, borrow De La Cruz's guitar. Since I thought De La Cruz was my great great grandfather, I thought it would be okay since it technically belonged to our family, and I thought De La Cruz wouldn't mind if his great great grandson borrowed the guitar. I, uh… I fell off and hit my head. When I woke up, it was morning, and you were there."

His explanation was halting, not to mention when he spoke De La Cruz's name, it looked like it physically pained him not to spit it out with venom, which didn't make sense because Miguel idolized the man only hours ago.

"You're hiding something," Hiro said. It wasn't a question; he was merely stating a fact. "But I won't push it-"

Miguel was visibly relieved.

"-for now," Hiro added with exaggerated emphasis, and Miguel looked a little less relieved. "Anyway, so that guitar was your actual great great grandfather's? How did you find that out? And where did you learn that lullaby?"

Miguel shifted, uncomfortably, suddenly very interested in sweeping the street. "Um… I plead the fifth?"

Hiro raised an eyebrow. "Since I've been a jerk to you since we met, I'll allow it, but what are you going to do now? About your great great grandfather?"

"Well, I'm genuinely curious about him," Miguel replied, and he looked… almost sad. "I want to know what happened to him, and I'm going to find out. Somehow."

Hiro nodded, not calling Miguel out on the cryptic statement or the fact that it seemed to be concealing something else, leaving something unsaid but implied…

"I can help you if you want," Hiro offered, not even sure why he felt the need to help Miguel with anything.

Maybe it's because I have a weird tight feeling in my chest, Hiro thought. I think Tadashi called it guilt…

I don't like it, he quickly decided.

Miguel looked almost as disbelieving at Hiro's offer as Hiro felt.

"Why would you want to help me with anything?" he asked. "You're already helping me with my punishment," he pointed out, gesturing to the courtyard, devoid of life besides them, as they swept up hundreds of petals by themselves, and Miguel's dog, who was prancing around excitedly.

"You want me to stop helping you?," Hiro asked, but he smiled to let Miguel know he was joking.

Miguel shook his head, rapidly. "No," he chuckled. "Thanks for helping me out."

Hiro nodded. "Yeah, and sorry for being such a jerk," he said.

Miguel nodded. "Me, too."

"Friends?" Hiro asked, which sounded unbelievably cheesy, even to his own ears, but Miguel either didn't notice or didn't mention it.

"Friends," Miguel agreed, and the two of them shook hands.

The beginnings of a friendship, the potential for a bond.

* * *

**Present:**

**February 1st, Downtown San Fransokyo**

Click… click… click… the microbot clacked against the plastic of the Petri Dish. Hiro continued to follow the direction the microbot was pointing towards, his eyes focused solely on the miniature robot. He could hear Baymax shuffling along behind him in his new carbon fiber armor, but he didn't pay much attention to the Nurse Robot until a balloon like hand suddenly grabbed him by the hood, yanking him to an abrupt stop.

Hiro was about to snap in irritation when he looked down and realized (rather belatedly) that he had been about to walk straight into the pier. His foot (his good foot) was even hanging off the edge of the dock!

"You should wait an hour after eating to go swimming," Baymax informed him, gently pulling him fully back onto solid ground.

"Thanks, Baymax. That was close," Hiro said, a little embarrassed as he looked back at the microbot, still shaking restlessly within the confines of the Petri Dish. "Why is it- Woah!"

The microbot flew from the Petri Dish and into the fog lingering above the waters of the bay.

"Whelp, that happened," Hiro muttered. "Okay, Baymax, here's the plan-"

Hiro was interrupted by the sudden shifting and shuffling of something, like a thousand tiny magnets attracting to each other, and he looked over the bay. Despite having expected it, his jaw dropped when he saw the wave of microbots hovering above the water, the man in the mask poised atop them like some kind of action movie super villain.

"Okay, change of plans," Hiro hissed. "Hide!"

Hiro dragged Baymax behind a building near the dock, and he peeked around the corner, staying well out of sight but taking his eyes off the masked man, who seemed to be… transporting stuff. Crates undoubtedly filled with supplies of some sort, giant sheets of metal. One of those pieces of metal had a symbol on it. A bird, maybe? Was he building something?

I'll ask him when we catch him, Hiro thought before turning back to the armor-clad Baymax.

"Okay, Baymax, time to use those upgrades," Hiro began, but before he could instruct Baymax to go all Karate Master on the masked man, he suddenly found himself and Baymax illuminated by a blinding light, and Hiro suddenly understand what it felt like to be a deer caught in a headlight.

Literally.

Hiro shielded his eyes with his hand, and he prepared himself to yell for Baymax to attack, but he stopped when the silhouette of a van came into view as his eyes adjusted to the bright headlights, and one of the doors opened, a familiar figure stepping out of the vehicle.

"Hiro, what the heck do you think you're doing?" Tadashi scolded, storming over to him as the rest of his (their?) nerd friends got out of the car.

Hiro smiled, sheepishly, trying to ignore the sounds coming from around the building as the masked man continued his work, oblivious to their presence. "Heeeeey, Tadashi," Hiro dragged out the first word, nervously. "Uh, I just decided to go on a walk. You said I should get out and get some fresh air, get my leg used to walking again, you know?"

Hiro was typically a very good liar, but then again, he usually lied about his age or attending bot fights or where he'd been at three o'clock in the morning. Well, this might have finally into the third category, but he was usually lying about going to Good Luck Alley, not chasing down a super villain with a nurse robot (albeit an upgrade nurse robot) as his only back up!

Tadashi sighed, rubbing his fingers over his forehead. "Hiro, it is after midnight; we are at the dock, miles away from home, and Baymax is dressed in carbon fiber underpants and looks like he's about to bust through some brick walls-"

"I now know the art of karate," Baymax added, 'helpfully.'

Tadashi slid his hand down his face with a groan of frustration. "And now my nurse robot, who is meant to help people, knows karate! Somehow, I don't think this is what I meant by get out more," Tadashi stated, sarcastically.

Hiro smiled, sheepishly. "Well, you should have been more specific."

"Hiro-" Tadashi began, angrily.

"Hiro," a new voice spoke up. Honey Lemon, her voice soft and a little strained with emotion, the usually so bubbly girl now depressed and unsure of herself. "I know you've been having a hard time since Miguel… so have I. So has Tadashi. But we can't help you through this if you don't talk to us."

Hiro wanted to tell her everything from the microbot to finding the warehouse to figuring out the masked man killed Miguel by setting that fire, but Baymax spoke first.

"Talking out your problems with friends and loved ones is shown to have significant health benefits," the robot stated in a matter of fact tone.

"Yeah!" Fred yelled, and it was hard to tell if his upbeat tone was due to him misreading the atmosphere or as an attempt to lighten the mood. "I'll go first. My name is Fred, and it has been thirty days since- HOLY MOTHER OF MEGAZON!"

At first, Hiro was startled and bewildered by the nerd speak until he heard a sudden shifting behind him, like a hundred snakes slithering towards them, and he turned around just in time to see a huge crate coming towards them, ready to crush them.

"OH MY GOODNESS, AHHH! I'mtooyoungtodieimtooyoungtodieimtooyoungtodie!" Wasabi murmured as he hunched over himself, waiting for the crate to smash them like pancakes on the sidewalk until he finally cracked one eye open, and he sighed in a mixture of astonishment and relief when he spotted Baymax holding the crate in his hands before tossing it as far away as he could manage. It landed several feet away with the bang of metal on metal.

For a moment, Hiro let himself believe they were safe… until he remembered the person who just tried to crush them with a shipping crate.

"Run!" GoGo shouted, all business and seriousness in the face of fear. Hiro opened his mouth to tell Baymax to attack, but Tadashi grabbed him by the hood and yanked him into the van.

"Tadashi, what are you doing?" Hiro yelled over the thunderous slacking of a tsunami of microbots heading towards them.

"Saving your life!" Tadashi answered, loudly. "Wasabi, drive!"

Wasabi didn't need to be told twice.

"Tadashi, Baymax can take that guy," Hiro insisted, climbing up the rows of seats to squeeze next to Tadashi in the passenger's seat.

As if to prove him wrong, there was a loud thud, followed by the crunching of metal as Baymax hurtled through the air and crashed onto the top of the car, his bottom coming straight through the roof, leaving him fixed there in the new hole in the top of Wasabi's van.

"Hiro, explanation. Now!" GoGo demanded.

"That guy started the fire and stole my microbots. I don't know who he is!" Hiro blurted.

"So why is he trying to kill us?" GoGo inquired.

"For the record, we don't know he's trying to kill us," Honey Lemon pointed out, optimistically, and everyone either yelped, screamed, or at least jerked back as a car slammed into the earth in front of them.

"I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill us!" Wasabi shouted as he harshly turned the wheel, tires squealing as the narrowly avoided hitting the thrown car.

They had barely passed the crushed car when the van stopped.

"What are you doing?" GoGo yelled.

"It's a red light!" Wasabi responded, gesturing to the stoplight in front of them, one of the circles glowing bright red.

"There are no red lights in a car chase!" GoGo snapped as she took her gum out of her mouth, stuck it to the dashboard, and hopped over the small section between the driver and passengers seats. Wasabi yelped as GoGo shoved him aside while she took the wheel, stepping on the brakes.

"Okay, so let me get this straight," Tadashi began, fear creeping into his voice as he continuously looked behind him to see where the masked man was. "You found out this masked man stole your microbots and started the fire, and your first course of action is to go after him with a healthcare robot as your only backpack?"

"I tried to go to the police," Hiro offered, meekly. "But they didn't believe me! In their defense, though, it does sound kind of crazy."

"Okay, at least you tried to go the police, but why would you go after the masked man instead of coming to me?" Tadashi questioned, sternly.

"Would you have let me go after the masked man?" Hiro asked, casually.

"Of course not!"

Before Hiro could retort or Tadashi could continue (whoever was able to speak first), Tadashi's eyes suddenly widened, and he barely had time to shout Hiro's name in alarm before Hiro was tumbling out the space where the car door had been only moments before, although the door had now been ripped off and was skittering down the street.

Hiro cried out, and his face was inches from the pavement speeding by underneath the car when something caught his hood.

Baymax lifted him until he was upright in the seat, and the robot pulled the seatbelt over Hiro's chest and waist while the boy was still trying to catch his breath after he almost died for the third time in less than five minutes.

"For your safety, always buckle up," Baymax informed him after the buckle clicked.

"Thanks, Baymax," Hiro said, quietly, still a little in shock as his mind worked overtime to process the fact that he nearly just fell out of a car going eighty miles an hour.

Tadashi let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, hut before he could continue scolding Hiro for going after a super villain with no supervision other than a nurse robot, Fred suddenly shrieked, "GoGo!"

Tadashi and Hiro spun back around to face the road, and they both screamed as a swirling tornado of microbots wrapped around the car, closing rapidly, nearly trapping them within the walls.

Through a small gap in the microbots, Hiro could see the masked man riding the wave od microbots, and even though the mask didn't display his eyes, Hiro knew their eyes met, and he felt a shiver rack his body as if he had been dunked in cold water before the gap in the microbots closed and the masked man was out of sight.

"We're not going to make it!" Fred yelled.

"We're going to make it!" GoGo disagreed, and if possible, she sped up even more.

They broke through the tornado of microbots right before the exit closed, and the van crashed into the bay.

The next few minutes were a blur of nothing but panic and cold for Hiro. His whole body hurt from the rough collision with the water, and the pain in his leg (the sharp ever present pain that he had been ignoring) intensified until only deep breaths could chase at least a little of the pain away or at least help Hiro to keep from collapsing and bawling like a baby.

The only problem? He couldn't take deep breaths underwater. He couldn't breathe at all!

Hiro was beyond relieved when a hand caught his arm, and the pain and fear faded away just enough for him to realize Baymax, having shed his armor, was floating to the surface with five young adults and one kid hanging from his vinyl body.

They broke the surface of the water, and for several moments, all you could hear was gasping and coughing.

Fred was the first one to speak. What did he say exactly?

"That was awesome. I mean, it was terrifying, but it was also awesome!"

And that was how six sopping wet and shivering humans, plus one robot, ended up shuffling through the streets of San Fransokyo at one in the morning.

"All of your body temperatures are: low."

"We know, Baymax," Tadashi laughed, weakly, his teeth chattering.

"This puts you at a risk for: hypothermia," Baymax continued, undeterred. "I detect small: abrasions, but I detect no serious injuries. However, you are all showing signs of: exhaustion. I recommend rest. Also, Hiro should rest his leg. Continued stress on his injury may cause more pain."

"Yeah, got that," Hiro muttered through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to rub his injured leg as he crossed his arms over his chest in the hopes of receiving some warmth from the action.

"Good news is… I know a place we can hang out!" Fred exclaimed. "And it's right here!"

Fred hopped up the steps to a gigantic house with several well lit windows and a huge door that towered over all of them, even Tadashi and Honey Lemon, the tallest two in their group.

"Welcome to mi casa. That's French for front door," Fred chirped, enthusiastically.

"It's really… not," Honey Lemon said.

"Look, I am not in the mood for-" GoGo began, angrily, but she was interrupted by the door swinging open to reveal a stiff butler with a mustache and black hair and a face more expressionless than Baymax's.

"Welcome home, Master Fredrick," the butler greeted.

"Heathcliff, my man!" Fred cheered. "All right, everybody, come in! Don't be a stranger!"

Nobody really knew how to react to this, but Hiro was cold and tired and in pain, so he simply walked in without further question, and the others soon followed.

"This is your house?" GoGo asked in disbelief.

"Well, it's my parent's house," Fred corrected as they passed a portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Fredrickson themselves. "But they're on a VA-K on the family island. We should go some time. You know, frolic," Fred added as he clapped his hands, the doors in front of them opening with the sound.

"I always thought you lived under a bridge," GoGo admitted as they stepped inside the room, and everyone stopped dead in their tracks.

"If I had not just been chased by a super villain, this would be the weirdest thing I've seen today," Wasabi said.

Wasabi had a point. Fred's room was, simply put, as weird as the boy himself. A huge bed was pushed against one wall with Captain Fancy bedding and a stack of comic books on the nightstand. Fred had a whole wall that was nothing but drawers like one big filing cabinet, and from the little information Hiro knew about Fred, he would bet each drawer was filled with comic books. There was a statue larger than any of them in one corner that had a note that said Fred, Do Not Touch. -Fred. There was a long sofa in the center of the room, and a display case built into one wall with action figures posed inside. There was a painting on the wall of a muscular Fred riding a tiger, and Wasabi looked very disturbed by it. There was a table on the far side of the room, and although Hiro itched to check out this sweet room, he went straight for it, grabbing a random notebook off a shelf and sitting in the chair to begin sketching.

He searched his mind as he drew the symbols from memory, and he was almost done when he suddenly felt a strange warm weight on his back, and he turned his head to see Baymax, glowing like some kind of snowman shaped heater (ha, ironic), leaning against him to transfer some of the warmth emitting off his body to Hiro's wet, cold form.

Hiro shrugged and didn't complain as he continued sketching, and he vaguely noticed the rest of them walk over to lean against Baymax with sighs of content.

"Like spooning a warm marshmallow," GoGo summed up.

"Does this mean anything to you guys?" Hiro wondered, holding up the finished drawing to reveal a bird surrounded by a circle.

"Yes!" Fred exclaimed. "It's a bird."

"The masked man was moving some metal with this symbol on it. It looked like he was building something," Hiro explained as he stood up, maneuvering his way out from under Baymax. "We need to do something. This guy… he started the fire that killed Miguel," Hiro's voice broke as he said his best friend's name. "And something tells me if he finishes whatever he plans on doing with those supplies he stole, not to mention the microbots… Miguel won't be the only person he's hurt."

"We're a bunch of college students, and he nearly just killed us, and the only way we escaped was by driving into the bay. Something tells me we're not much of a match for him," Tadashi pointed out.

"I know it looks that way, but I just… I just need to look for another angle like you always tell me to!" Hiro said, running his fingers through his fringe as he paced. He abruptly stopped and picked up an action figure off the coffee table. A crazy idea began to take root in his mind.

This whole situation is crazy. Maybe a crazy plan is the only way to handle a crazy situation, Hiro reasoned as a smile spread over his face.

"But what can we do?" Wasabi asked. "We're nerds."

"No," Hiro responded, eyes traveling to the display case of action figures across the room. "You can be way more."

"I like there is heading!" Fred said, excitedly.

Hiro turned around. "Look, this plan is… insane. I'm going to need all hands on deck if I'm going to pull this off. Are you guys in?"

Honey Lemon smiled, a little sadly. "Miguel was my cousin, my family. I'm in."

"Me, too," GoGo agreed.

"Of course I'm in!" Fred cheered, practically bouncing with eagerness.

"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but… I'm in, too," Wasabi relented.

"I'm in. Not only do I want to lock this guy up and get justice for Miguel, but I also have a feeling that if none of us agreed, you'd do it anyway, even If you had to do it alone. And you're just plain stupid if you think I'll let you take on a super villain by yourself," Tadashi stated, ruffling Hiro's hair.

Hiro nodded, grateful beyond words because Tadashi was right. He would have gone after the masked man with or without help, and it was nice to not have to go it alone. It was nice to have a team that would have his back.

It was nice to have friends.

"Thanks," Hiro said. "Now, let's get started."

* * *

_Hiro and Miguel are officially friends, and Hiro went after a super villain on his own (I love writing the car chase scene. I made it funnier than I intended to, especially with Fred and Wasabi, but I regret nothing!)._

_Thank you for reading! I hope you liked the chapter, and please leave a review! Thank you!_


	5. You Were Standing There By My Side

_**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**_

* * *

**Chapter 5:**

**Past:**

**December 7th**

"One of these days, you are going to get yourself killed!"

"You know what they say: live fast, die young!"

"Nobody says that!"

Miguel cried out as two bot fighters appeared at the end of the alley, and he jerked to the side, grabbing Hiro by the arm and yanking him around the corner of the building.

"You know, when you called, saying you needed my help, I didn't think you meant this! I thought you meant with an invention or a shift at the café! Running from bot fighters was not what I had in mind!" Miguel shouted as he shoved Hiro into the dirty, cramped-but thankfully hidden- space beside a dumpster. The but fighters bolted past their hiding spot, none the wiser.

"They'll figure it out soon enough. They may not be geniuses, but they're not stupid either," Hiro told him before beginning to climb a ladder that would lead to the roof of the four story tall building. "We can hide out on the roof and come back down once they've given up."

Miguel's already elevated heartrate sped up as he stared at the ladder that seemed to stretch miles and miles above their heads, a memory of falling, of the ground coming closer and closer and closer, flashing in his mind.

He wrung his hands, nervously. "Um, Hiro, I-I don't know about that."

"It's either this, or take our chances with the bot fighters," Hiro pointed out, not even looking back as he continued to climb the rungs of the ladder on his way to the roof.

Miguel glanced to his right and saw a skinny but still rather intimidating bot fighter talking with another one of his buddies at the end of the alley. The fighter hadn't noticed them yet, but it was only a matter of time.

Come on, Miguel, he thought to himself. Nothing to be scared of. No Ernesto to throw you off the roof this time or a dead line (a literal dead line, I guess) with the sun minutes from rising. Nothing to be afraid of.

With that thought, Miguel inhaled, deeply, and began to climb.

They reached the top of the roof, and Miguel swallowed, resisting the urge to look down.

Of course, he looked down.

The grimy streets were so far below him, it almost looked like they were another world, and the lights of the Land of the Dead-

Miguel shook his head. No, this wasn't the Land of the Dead. This was San Fransokyo. Ernesto wasn't here; Hector wasn't fading away before his eyes; his skin wasn't vanishing, replaced by the nauseating, petrifying sight of spotless bones. He was safe. He was safe. He was safe.

"Miguel, I… I am really sorry I got you into this, but you have to admit it was really fun, right? Miguel?"

Miguel didn't hear Hiro. The boy's voice was drowned out by the pounding of his heart in his ears, overpowered by his breaths that seemed too loud and too fast but any attempt to control it only seemed to make it worse. He felt like he was shaking and frozen at the same time, boiling yet freezing, exhausted yet vibrating with energy. He didn't even notice that he was flexing his fingers and cracking his knuckles or digging his nails into the palms of his hands, as though he was subconsciously reassuring himself that there was skin over those bones.

"Miguel? Miguel!"

A hand touched his shoulder, and Miguel reeled back. Ernesto… Ernesto was back! He was going to throw him off the roof. He didn't want to die; he didn't want to die; he had to live, had to say he was sorry, had to get back to his family, had to make sure Hector was remember. He had to live. He wanted to live.

Miguel was so desperate to get away from the phantom of Ernesto that he didn't notice he was back pedaling too far, didn't notice the edge of the roof getting closer and closer to his feet.

"Miguel!"

Two hands grabbed his just as Miguel felt the all too familiar feeling of falling as his stomach dropped, his balance teetering dangerously, and the hands gripping just wrist yanked him back. Solid ground returned to his feet, and the sensation of falling disappeared.

Miguel, the fear and panic numbing his limbs, fell to the ground. He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the pristine white of his bones or the cruel, remorseless face of Ernesto or the shudders racking Hector's body, orange light pulsing through the aged and cracking bones of a man he had only met that night but considered him a friend… family.

Miguel could feel a presence beside him, but he didn't open his eyes. If Ernesto killed him, he didn't want to see it happen.

"Miguel? Miguel, look at me."

That wasn't Ernesto, but Miguel still couldn't muster the courage to open his eyes.

Something was rested in his hands, something smooth and flexible, flimsy but durable, a cool metal surface.

"Miguel, tell me what it feels like, okay?"

Miguel took a deep breath, not sure why this person wanted him to do this, but if it made the mind altering panic go away, he would do it.

"Um… smooth? Almost flimsy but… not?" Miguel felt disconnected from his brain; he couldn't think straight, and he wracked his brain for a way to describe the object he held in his hands. He was crawling his way back to himself, whether he realized it or not.

"Metal. Cold. A little worn, like it's been used a lot. But it still feels pretty tough. It.. Megabot?"

Miguel opened his eyes, and the Land of the Dead was gone, replaced by San Fransokyo. And it was not the cruel, skeletal face of Ernesto staring down at him, but the concerned expression of Hiro Hamada, the fourteen year old genius sitting beside him, not quite touching but still close enough to be comforting.

"Hiro?" Miguel murmured, disorientation overwhelming him. Thrust into the past and yanked back to the present was jarring, to say the least.

Hiro nodded. "Are you… okay?"

(Hiro felt stupid for asking the question. Of course Miguel wasn't okay!)

Miguel nodded. "Yeah, I think so. I-I…" Miguel felt like he owed Hiro an explanation, but he wasn't sure how to describe the panic or the memory, and her certainly didn't know how to explain what happened to him on Day of the Dead.

Hiro seemed to sense this. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Miguel let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Thanks," he said.

Silence descended over them like a heavy cloud.

"Can we just… stay up here for a while? I don't think I'm ready to go down yet," Miguel stated.

The two friends were seated, side by side, in the center of the vacant roof. Miguel didn't think he was ready to face the sight of the sheer drop quite yet.

Hiro nodded. "Sure. We can go down whenever you're ready."

The two of them sat there in silence for a long time, but the silence was not uncomfortable. Just the opposite. They sat there, neither speaking or moving, but simply being together, Miguel unconsciously drawing strength from the presence of his best friend.

After an hour and a half had passed, Miguel was ready to climb down.

* * *

**Present:**

**Hamada Residence- Garage**

For the next three days, Hiro Hamada found himself running on caffeine, adrenaline, desperation, and gummy bears.

This was not the first time Hiro had found himself in this situation- his high school science fair project, which ended in the near creation of a fatal black hole, was a great example- but it was by far the hardest and the best days of his life.

The first day was dedicated to creating the gear.

"The neurotransmitter must be in his mask."

Hiro spent all of ten minutes figuring out the components of the gear and matching them to the person, basing each suit off of the wearer's area of expertise.

GoGo's was probably the easiest to make, aside from his own. The suit was comprised of a flexible but strong chest piece and leggings that would enable GoGo to move freely but still had a thin cover over them to protect her. The disks attached to her hands (for throwing) and feet (for quick movement, almost like a cross between roller skating and ice skating); the hardest part of her suit was working out the balance when factoring in weight distribution and the highest and lowest velocity, not to mention the different types of ground the disks would have to be able to work on.

"We get the mask, he can't control the microbots."

Wasabi's wasn't necessarily hard, but it required great caution. The suit itself took half an hour tops, but the plasma blades were incredibly dangerous to both Hiro and Wasabi. Hiro built them at a snail's pace to avoid losing any fingers, and then, he had to take extra precautions on the parts of the suit that would cover Wasabi's hands and arms to avoid the plasma weapons harming their wielder in any way.

"Without the microbots, he's just a regular guy."

Honey Lemon's was perhaps the most complex. Figuring out a way to store multiple chemicals without causing a bad chemical reaction was not easy to do. He eventually decided on the purse because… well, because it was Honey Lemon. He crafted small compartments that housed the 'Chem-balls', as he called them, (while making sure to keep certain chemicals separate, lest he risk unpleasant consequences) before entering a system through a series of wires and codes that would allow Honey Lemon to type a combination into the periodic table on the front of the purse and receive that particular Chem-ball(s).

"The mask needs to be our target, which sounds easy, but the hard partner going to be getting close enough to get it."

Fred's was undoubtedly the hardest to make. There were dozens of wires running through the suit, and having it breathe fire in a way that was controllable and would not harm Fred inside of the suit was not exactly a walk in the park. Hiro also had to make the suit waterproof because something told him if those words got wet… it would not be good.

"We need to train learn how to use our gear to our advantage with the primary goal being to get the mask."

Tadashi's wasn't difficult, but it required heavy amounts of precision. Hiro decided to go with invisibility for his older brother. Tadashi was quiet and stealthy, he knew, and invisibility had always been a power his brother had wanted, so Hiro decided to make his wish come true.

"Everybody got it? Good. Let's get started."

(And he also knew invisibility would increase Tadashi's chances of escape if things went south, but he wouldn't tell his brother that. Tadashi would never agree with the slightest chance of Hiro getting captured or hurt, but Hiro wanted Tadashi's 'power' to be something that could protect him. Invisibility could mean escape, and escape meant safety).

Hiro made Tadashi's suit fireproof and as impenetrable as he could manage. He had already lost one brother; he would not lose another.

After some brief consideration, Hiro added these traits to each of the suits. Soon enough, all of the suits were fireproof and resembled armor more than suits for extra protection.

He had already lost one friend; he would not lose anymore.

Baymax's suit was pretty cool, if he did say so himself. It was a lot of different pieces but all of them were simple to make and design. This suit was much more flexible than the previous one to avoid the clunky nature of the 'carbon fiber underpants,' as GoGo had dubbed them. This one also had an awesome weapon that Hiro called the rocket fist, not to mention the ability to fly. He also upgraded Baymax's scanner after discovering that Baymax had scanned the masked man during the car chase and had his information in his database.

Hiro called Baymax's suit his best invention ever.

His own suit wasn't much compared to the others, but he liked it. The helmet could bring up a ton of information, much like Tony Stark's suit in the Iron Man movies, and it also linked to his friend's suits so they could be tracked if one ever got hurt or went missing or anything else. He also had magnets built into the kneecaps and palms of his suit. His suit also went hand it hand with Baymax's (actually, that was his brother's idea).

_"Okay, but if we're gonna do this, you need someone with you at all times."_

_"What? Tadashi-"_

_"No buts. You stick with one of us or the plan is off."_

_"But all of you guys will mother me. I might as well not go at all if I'll have a body guard with me at all times."_

_*sigh* "Fine. What about Baymax? He'll protect you when you need it, but he won't 'mother' you, as you put it."_

_"Hmm… Deal!"_

Anyway, although he would never admit it to Tadashi, he actually liked the idea of sticking with Baymax. The robot was quickly growing on him, he discovered.

The two days after that were all about training, discovering the best way to retrieve the mask from the masked man. If the man was controlling the microbots, the neurotransmitter was likely in his mask, so if they got the mask, they severed the link between the microbots and the man, and it was game over.

Which brings us to…

"Okay, Baymax, show them the fist," Hiro was saying on the fifth day of training, placing his own fist out to indicate the action.

Baymax copied the moment, looking strangely confused for a robot, before he opened his fist, wiggled his finger, and pulled his fist back in upward arch.

"Ba-la-la-la," he said.

Hiro heard Tadashi snicker in the background, and he sighed, not able to contain a laugh of his own.

"No, the other thing," he told the robot.

"Oh," Baymax states, monotonously, before placing his fist out once again.

For a moment, nothing happened, but then, the fist of the armor suddenly detached, and it hurtled towards the wall, colliding with the beige colored bricks of the wall surrounding the garden, causing a spider web of cracks to spread out from the initial impact. The fist did a flip in midair and soared back over to reconnect with Baymax's armor.

Hiro looked at the destroyed wall, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Uh, sorry about the wall, Fred," he offered, but Fred cut off his apology with an excited borderline squeal.

"The wall? Who cares about the wall? Baymax has a rocket fist!" he exclaimed.

Hiro smiled, glad Fred wasn't mad about him demolishing the wall, and he went on to say, "Oh, and there's one more thing!"

Hiro climbed onto a bench behind Baymax before locking his feet into the foot holds, the magnets in the kneecaps of his suit connecting to other magnets built into the back of Baymax's suit. He grabbed Baymax's shoulders and held on tight.

"Wings!" he announced, and the wings jutted out from the back of Baymax's suit. "Thrusters!"

The thrusters roared to life in the bottoms of Baymax's feet, and the two of them rose off of the ground, Hiro smirking slightly as he watched the faces of his friends and brother morph from impressed to amazed to downright awestruck as they took off.

Unfortunately, Hiro hadn't really practiced the steering yet, and before he knew it, Baymax had fallen flat, skidded a few feet, and was flying one way before jerking into the opposite direction. The two of them rushed mere inches over his friends as they ducked to avoid being hit by the flying robot, and then, they were out of the garden and gliding away from the Fredrickson property, Hiro screaming in both terror and excitement all the way.

"Be back before dark!" he heard Tadashi call after him, and that made yet another laugh bubble out of his throat.

The feeling of flying was unlike anything else Hiro had ever experienced. The weightlessness in his stomach, as if he was falling, and while falling may be terrifying, realizing that you are not going to fall makes the fear transform into excitement. He could feel the vibrations from Baymax's thrusters, and the wind seeped through the openings in his helmet, engulfing his face in a coldness and ruffling his hair. That only increased the euphoria, and Hiro didn't stop laughing for a solid five minutes as Baymax and him soared high above the streets of San Fransokyo.

And for a moment, he was truly happy. Up here, no tragedy, no sadness, no grief, no guilt… None of that could touch him. Up here, he was free.

However, that did nor make steering any easier.

"Up, up, up, up!" Hiro screeched, and he jerked upwards, Baymax clumsily following the desperate command/plead. They barely missed the top of a semi truck.

Baymax landed on the bridge, standing on the edge and overlooking the bay.

Hiro laughed for what must have been the hundredth time in as many seconds. "I think that's enough flying for today, don't you think?" he asked Baymax, breathing heavily as his heart pounded in his chest.

"My scan indicates that your neurotransmitter levels are rising, steadily."

Hiro recoiled a little at the sound of that. He may be a genius, hut his area of expertise was robotics, not medical biology and what not.

"Which means what?" Hiro inquired, nervously.

If Baymax wasn't a robot, Hiro would have said he sounded happy.

"The treatment is working," Baymax answered, and Hiro's stomach dropped as he realized Baymax was beginning to tip, the heavy armor-clad robot slowly leaning until he fell off the bridge. Hiro and his robot companion were suddenly hurtling towards the water, Hiro screaming all the way.

At the last possible second, Baymax's thrusters kicked back on, and the two of them straightened out, flying above the water, the wind from Baymax's thrusters creating a picturesque spray of water around them.

Hiro cautiously opened one eye after realizing that they were, in fact, not dead, and upon seeing the view, a smile found its way onto his face.

If he thought the awkward, clumsy flying had been exhilarating, this smooth flying over the bay was one hundred percent awesome. They soared past buildings and over the water, and even did a few tricks once Hiro got the hang of steering.

The sun was beginning to set when the two of them settled on the big objects hovering over the bay that transformed wind into energy for the city (AN: that's what I thought they did, anyway), Hiro still breathing a little heavily from the excitement with Baymax sitting beside him, experiencing a comfortable silence as they watched the sun sink lower and lower in the sky, painting it cotton candy pink and burning the clouds into the color of orange dream.

"Wow, that was… amazing," Hiro said, smile on his face and light in his eyes. "I… Thank you, Baymax."

Hiro didn't really know what he was thanking Baymax for, and he was sure Baymax didn't know either, but he was positive that even the robot could hear the thousands of meanings and emotions packed into those three words. He was thanking Baymax for so much more than the flying experience. He was thanking him… well, he was thanking the health care companion for everything, and even Hiro himself couldn't name all of the different things everything was formed by.

"Would you like me to deactivate now?"

Hiro jumped at the sudden question, baffled by Baymax's innocent, automated inquiry. "What? Why?"

"The treatment is working," Baymax answered, as if that made total sense, which, I suppose, to the robot, it did. Baymax was a machine; he didn't understand friendship or compassion or loyalty or the way humans rely on people or things they care about. Baymax didn't understand that, at least not yet. He didn't understand that he was more than a machine, more than a robotic nurse, to Hiro. Baymax was his friend, and Hiro really needed one of those right now. He couldn't imagine deactivating Baymax, especially now; it would be like losing another friend.

"No," Hiro snapped, sounding harsher than he meant to as he stood, a little awkwardly as he avoided putting weight on his dead leg. "We still have to catch that guy. Could you scan for him?"

Baymax blinked before his eyes dilated s he did as Hiro asked, a small whirring noise sounding from him as he moved his head back and forth, scanning the entire city with his upgraded scanner.

"I have located the: Masked Man. He is there, at a location known as Akuma Island," Baymax informed him, pointing to the aforementioned island in the distance.

Hiro nodded, the euphoria of flying being rapidly replaced by seriousness as the gravity of the situation crashed over him. "Let's go catch this guy."

* * *

"Um, guys, should we really be going to a quarantine zone?" Wasabi questioned, clinging to Baymax's armored leg as they touched down on Akuma Island.

Baymax and Hiro had picked up the others after they had located the masked man, which led to a transportation problem. Baymax could lift a thousand pounds, so he could carry all of them, but Baymax only had two hands. They eventually decided that Wasabi and Fred would hold onto opposite legs while Honey Lemon and GoGo were held in Baymax's arms, and Tadashi and Hiro held onto Baymax's shoulders.

(You do not want to know how long it took them to come up with and execute this arrangement.)

Everyone ignored the paranoid clean-freak as they disembarked, Honey Lemon and GoGo hopping down from Baymax's arms effortlessly with Fred letting go of Baymax's leg and clumsily clambering to the ground (falling on his butt in the process). Wasabi very carefully slid down Baymax's leg to the ground, cautiously climbing over Baymax's thrusters, as if he expected them to activate any minute. Tadashi hopped down from Baymax's back, and he picked Hiro up, setting him on the ground, much to Hiro's chagrin.

"Really, Tadashi?" Hiro sputtered in embarrassment. "I could've gotten down myself."

"Hiro, no offense, but with that leg, you can barely get out of your bed, much less off the back of a robot. We don't know what we're facing in there, so you better save your strength," Tadashi told him.

"Just because I have a dead leg doesn't mean I'm helpless!"

"I know that, Hiro, but-"

"Guys! This sign has a fricking skull on it!" Wasabi hissed, pointing to a yellow quarantine sign with a dark red skull on it.

Everyone turned to Wasabi, raising eyebrows at the paranoid man.

"What? Am I the only one concerned that we could be walking into an environment infected with some kind of deadly virus or radiation or who knows what else?" Wasabi whisper-shouted.

"Woman up, you big baby!" GoGo ordered, punching Wasabi 'lightly' on the should before the seven of them headed for the building.

"Guys! Guys!" Wasabi called before he sighed. "Oh, who am I kidding? They're not listening. Maybe this was a bad idea," Wasabi muttered to himself. "Maybe I should just go home, organize my sock drawer, and drink a nice cup of coff- dang it, Baymax is my ride! Guys, wait up!"

"So how are going to get in?" Fred asked as he jiggled the doorknob, which was-no surprise- locked. "Oh, I know? Wasabi, use your laser hands!"

"Plasma blade, Fred! Plasma blade!"

"I've got this," Hiro said, examining the lock. "Tadashi, give me your credit card."

"Really, you're going to drain my bank account now?"

"Tadashi!"

Tadashi handed his little brother his credit card, and Hiro inserted the card between the door and the door frame before sliding it downward. He heard a click, and he smiled triumphantly as he pulled the door open and handed Tadashi his credit card.

"Hiro," Tadashi began, a little skeptically and more than a little confused. "Where did you learn to-"

"Let's go," Hiro interrupted, ducking through the newly opened door, shortly followed by Baymax.

"Hiro!" Tadashi hissed, but Hiro ignore him. Tadashi turned to his friends for back up, but they all just shrugged and followed the raven haired genius deeper into the building.

Tadashi sighed, running his hand down in his face in exasperation. He mumbled, "Unbelievable," before following his friends and brother into the mysterious building.

"Fred and his angels on an adventure on Akuma Island to defeat Yokai-"

"Fred… I will laser hand you in the face!"

"I thought you said it was a plasma blade."

"Fred-"

"Guys!" Hiro cut off the argument. "Focus! Baymax, have you got anything?"

A soft whirring sounded as Baymax scanned the building.

"This structure is interfering with my sensors," Baymax informed them, matter-of-factly.

"Oh, great! The robot's broken," Wasabi stated, sarcastically.

"Wait, guys, I hear something," Tadashi hissed, and the others immediately quieted, allowing the sound of clinking and whirring to become distinguishable in the now dead silence of the building.

"Through here," GoGo murmured, so lowly that the others wouldn't have been able to hear her if no one even dared to breathe. The girl twisted the doorknob of the closest door as quietly as possible before pushing it open, allowing the group to sneak in under the shadows of the poorly lit room with GoGo in front and Honey Lemon bring up the rear.

The first thing they saw was the device. It was a metal ring that towered over them, an identical (although not completed yet) one beside it. It sat in the center of the room with several spare parts surrounding it, and the group had stepped through the doorway and onto a platform that overlooked the construction sight.

The device was hard to miss, but the second thing they noticed was that the noises that had drawn them to the room had silenced. There wasn't any sign of movement in the room. No sparks, no microbots, no Yokai.

"Well, I guess this was a bust. Maybe we should head-"

Wasabi was abruptly cut off the clicking of microbots, like hundreds of spiders scuttling across the floor, and the group barely had enough time to turn around and see a huge slab of rock heading straight for them, whistling through the air. Five feet away. Three feet away. One foot away.

Zero feet away.

The group braced themselves for impact (a few with more dignity than others. Wasabi and Fred screamed like little girls, and Hiro is pretty sure he heard Tadashi squeal as well. Normally, he would tease him for that, but as they were about to die, he couldn't blame his brother or even Fred and Wasabi for shrieking high enough to make the birds fly away), and they all closed their eyes, not wanting to see their approaching doom…

But it never reached them.

Instead, Baymax lifted his armor-clad arms to the sky and allowed the rock to fall onto his hands. The robot slouched a little under the weight but managed to keep the chunk of debris aloft and even toss it away from them.

That was when Yokai appeared.

Yokai rose above them, a masked figure riding a wave of darkness, a villain straight out of a comic book. Empty, soulless eyes stared out of the painted mask, two vacant pits set into the face of a demon.

Don't think like that, Hiro, the fourteen year old chided himself. Without the microbots, he's just a regular guy. Focus on getting the mask, and then, he will be just like you and the others.

Surprisingly enough, Wasabi was the first to react, and it wasn't with a scream. His eyes displayed fear, but his body moved with an adrenalized instinct, his plasma blades bursting from his arm guards and slashing at the column of microbots that had been barreling towards them.

The plasma blades cut straight through the microbots, destroying some and separating the rest from their counterparts, splitting the column in half and causing the redirected microbots to pound into the wall instead of the heroes they had been aiming for.

Just like that, the fight was on.

A lot of things happened at once, and to an outsider, it looked like utter chaos, but that was what the seven of them were counting on.

GoGo and Honey Lemon were the First Wave. Honey Lemon pummeled Yokai and the microbots with chemballs while GoGo skated around the villain, no more than a yellow blur, landing disk after disk on him, barely waiting for the thrown weapon to return to her hand before launching yet another attack.

Fred and Wasabi were the Second Wave. The microbots were, unfortunately, fire proof, but if there was enough force behind the fire, it could be used to separate them, shrinking the effectiveness of a microbots attack. A ripple was easier to take out than a tsunami, basically. Fred would blast the microbots with enough force to divide a wave into more manageable tendrils, which Wasabi would focus on destroying.

The four of them kept Yokai busy, and Baymax and Hiro went in for the kill…

Not literally.

"Let's do this, Baymax," Hiro whispered to the robot before the duo were off, spiraling towards Yokai in the center of his sea of microbots, the thrusters at full power.

Baymax reached out his fist and was prepared to snatch the mask from Yokai when…

Yokai caught them, raising his fist, and the microbots obeyed his commands, wrapping around Hiro and Baymax, crushing them until Hiro is sure he heard his spine pop under the pressure. Hiro groaned in pain as his lungs were squeezed, making it hard to breathe with the microbots restricting hid airflow.

"Oh, no," Baymax said, which pretty much summed it up.

Except for one thing Yokai didn't factor into the equation.

The mask was yanked off of Yokai's face without an ounce of gentleness, and Yokai, his face still shrouded by his cloak whirled around, only to receive a foot to the chest, sending him sprawling.

The microbots dropped to the floor, Hiro and Baymax falling with them.

Drinking in great breaths of oxygen, Hiro smiled in relief at the mask that seemed to be hovering in midair in the spot where Yokai had been.

"Hello, Tadashi," Baymax said, always a man (well, robot) of few words, and the cloaking technology disappeared, rippling as it was deactivated, to reveal Hiro's older brother standing there, the mask held triumphantly in his hand.

"That was AWESOME!" Wasabi cheered.

"Yeah. I was all like- bam, bam!- and you were all like- whoosh, whoosh!" Fred agreed, mimicking blasts of fire and blade movements respectfully.

"Yeah, it was-"

"Guys?" GoGo interrupted, and any adrenaline-fueled excitement immediately wore off as the seven of them turned to the unmasked figure still lying on the floor, slowly climbing to all fours.

Hiro walked towards him. He was so focused on Yokai, on discovering the identity of the man who set the fire that killed his best friend, that the pain in his leg went unnoticed as he approached the murderer.

"Let's see who you really are," Hiro said, voice frighteningly emotionless, eyes almost as empty as the ones that had stared out of the mask only minutes ago.

The man made it to his feet, and without further hesitation, Yokai spun around to face them, anger burning in familiar eyes and a scowl fixed on an even more familiar face.

Tadashi's jaw dropped, and Hiro's pretty sure GoGo, who is known for her indifferent attitude, gasped. Honey Lemon actually took a step back in shock, and Fred looked like someone had just slapped him across the face. Wasabi's eyebrows shot up into his hairline.

As for Hiro? He just stood there, staring at a man he had admired (admittedly not as much as his brother or his friends, but had still admired), staring at the man who had been the inspiration for so many of Hiro's inventions, including Megabot and the microbots. No emotion passed over his face. He was too shocked to even express his own astonishment in that moment. The only outward sign of his confusion and horror and betrayal was a signal word, spoken with both no emotion and too many emotions to name:

"Callaghan?"


End file.
